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. 2022 Feb 11;17(2):e0262699. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262699

Table 1. Details of included studies.

Author Year N Effect size (r) p-value Sample type Percentage of men within sample Religiosity type Intelligence measure Publication status
Howells 1928 461 -.25 < .01 College 43 Beliefs Thorndike Intelligence Test, Iowa Comprehension Test, and GPA Published
Sinclair 1928 67 -.44 < .01 College 48 Beliefs UEE Published
Carlson 1934 100 -.19 .058 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Franzblau 1934 354 -.15 .005 Precollege 44 Beliefs Terman Test of Mental Abilities Published
(1)Symington 1935 200 -.24 .001 College n/a Beliefs Otis Test of Mental Ability Published
(2)Symington 1935 160 -.47 < .01 College n/a Beliefs Otis Test of Mental Ability Published
V.Jones 1938 268 -.24 < .01 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Corey 1940 234 -.03 .648 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Gilliland 1940 326 .00 1.000 College n/a Beliefs Not specified Published
Gragg 1942 100 -.02 .843 College 50 Beliefs UEE Published
Brown and Lowe 1951 108 -.43 < .01 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Dreger 1952 60 -.13 .322 Non-college 50 Beliefs Wonderlic Personnel Test Published
Kosa and Schommer 1961 361 .09 .088 College 100 Behavior Assorted tests and GPA Published
Hadden 1963 261 -.06 .334 College n/a Mixed GPA Published
Feather 1964 165 -.16 .040 College 100 Beliefs Syllogisms Published
Verhage 1964 1538 -.12 < .01 Non-college n/a Behavior Groninger Intelligence Test Published
(1)Young, Dustin and Holtzman 1966 481 .03 .512 College 69 Beliefs GPA Published
(2)Young, Dustin and Holtzman 1966 574 -.11 .008 College 57 Beliefs GPA Published
Feather 1967 40 -.09 .581 College 50 Behavior Syllogisms Published
Bender 1968 96 -.10 .332 Non-college 100 Behavior UEE and GPA Published
Southern and Plant 1968 72 -.75 < .01 Non-college 58 Beliefs Mensa membership Published
(1)Hoge 1969 179 -.12 .110 College n/a Mixed UEE Unpublished
(2)Hoge 1969 135 -.08 .356 College n/a Mixed UEE Unpublished
(3)Hoge 1969 327 -.07 .207 College n/a Mixed UEE Unpublished
Kahoe 1974 188 .18 .001 College 38 Beliefs GPA / American College Published
(1)Salter and Routledge 1974 339 -.15 .006 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
(2)Salter and Routledge 1974 241 -.18 .005 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Foy 1975 36 -.50 .002 Non-college 50 Beliefs WAIS Unpublished
Poythress 1975 195 -.19 .008 College n/a Beliefs UEE Published
Dodrill 1976 44 .05 .747 Non-college 54 Beliefs WAIS Published
Francis 1979 2272 .04 .057 Precollege n/a Mixed IQ from school records Published
(1)Turner 1980 200 -.04 .574 Precollege 100 Beliefs Thurstone Primary Mental Abilities Scale Published
(2)Turner 1980 200 -.02 .779 Precollege 100 Beliefs Thurstone Primary Mental Abilities Scale Published
Francis, Pearson and Stubbs 1985 290 -.13 .055 Precollege 72 Beliefs IQ (not specified) Published
Francis;Francis 1997 711 -.04 .287 Precollege 40 Mixed Raven Progressive Matrices Published
(1)Blanchard-Fields, Hertzog, Stein and Pak 2001 96 .04 1.000 College 60 Mixed Shipley Vocabulary Test Published
(2)Blanchard-Fields, Hertzog, Stein and Pak 2001 219 -.32 < .01 Non-college 42 Mixed Shipley Vocabulary Test Published
Crossman 2001 75 -.36 .002 Non-college 0 Beliefs Immediate free recall Unpublished
Saroglou and Scariot 2002 94 .13 .212 Precollege 41 Mixed GPA Published
Horowitz and Garber 2003 172 .05 .515 Precollege 46 Mixed WISC Vocabulary and Block design Published
Saroglou and Fiasse 2003 120 .07 .447 College 56 Beliefs GPA Published
Clark 2004 77 -.12 .299 College 22 Beliefs WAIS III Published
Carothers, Borkowski, Burke, Lefever and Whitman 2005 101 -.25 .012 Non-college 0 Behavior WAIS-R Vocabulary and Block design Published
Ciesielski-Kaiser 2005 216 -.14 .040 College 36 Beliefs Shipley Institute for Living Scale Unpublished
Wahling 2005 35 -.32 .061 Non-college 14 Beliefs Six cognitive ability tests Unpublished
Hergovich and Arendasy 2005 180 -.23 .002 College 41 Beliefs Wiener Matrizen-Test Published
McCullough, Enders, Brion and Jain 2005 951 -.45 < .01 Non-college n/a Beliefs Stanford-Binet Published
Deptula, Henry, Shoeny and Slavick 2006 11963 -.10 < .01 Precollege n/a Beliefs Modified Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Published
Räsänen, Tirri and Nokelainen 2006 142 -.17 .043 Precollege n/a Beliefs Assorted tests Published
Cottone, Drucker and Javier 2007 123 -.14 .122 College 35 Beliefs WAIS III comprehension and similarities and GPA Published
(1)Stanovich and West 2007 439 -.24 < .01 College 24 Beliefs UEE Published
(2)Stanovich and West 2007 1045 -.18 < .01 College 31 Beliefs UEE Published
Szobot et al. 2007 236 .15 .021 Precollege 100 Behavior WAIS III block design and Vocabulary Published
Bloodgood, Turnley and Mudrack 2008 230 -.15 .023 College 63 Behavior UEE Published
Bertsch and Pesta 2009 278 -.15 .012 College 42 Beliefs Wonderlic Personnel Test Published
Inzlicht, McGregor, Hirsh and Nash 2009 22 -.13 .564 College 41 Beliefs Wonderlic Personnel Test Published
Nyborg 2009 3742 -.05 .002 Precollege n/a Behavior Assorted tests Published
(1) Boazman 2010 122 .13 .154 College 52 Mixed GPA Unpublished
(2) Boazman 2010 91 -.26 .013 College 34 Mixed GPA Unpublished
(1)Kanazawa 2010 14277 -.12 < .01 Non-college 47 Beliefs Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Published
(2)Kanazawa 2010 7160 -.14 < .01 Non-college 44 Beliefs Verbal synonyms Published
Nokelainen and Tirri 2010 20 -.20 .398 Precollege 45 Beliefs WAIS III Published
Raman 2010 129 .15 .090 College n/a Mixed ACER Word Knowledge test Unpublished
Sherkat 2010 12994 -.15 < .01 Non-college 43 Mixed Vocabulary Test Published
Lewis, Ritchie and Bates 2011 2155 -.16 < .01 Non-college n/a Mixed Assorted tests Published
Heaven, Ciarrochi and Leeson 2011 375 -.14 .007 Precollege 45 Beliefs G of six numerical and three verbal tests Published
Shenav, Rand and Greene 2011 306 -.06 .295 College 35 Beliefs Shipley Vocabulary Test, and WAIS III Matrix Reasoning Test Published
Sherkat 2011 1780 -.34 < .01 Non-college n/a Beliefs Scientific Literacy Scale from General Social Survey Published
(1)Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler and Fugelsang 2012 223 -.19 .004 Non-college 41 Mixed Assorted tests Published
(2)Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler and Fugelsang 2012 267 -.17 .005 Non-college 22 Mixed Assorted tests Published
Ganzach and Gotlibovski 2013 8984 -.23 < .01 Mixeda n/a Beliefs AFQT (Armed Forces Qualifying Test) Published
Pennycook and Cheyne, Koehler and Fugelsang 2013 91 -.34 .001 College 27 Beliefs WordSum Published
Razmyar and Reeve 2013 150 -.16 .050 College 47 Beliefs Employee Aptitude Survey—abbreviated Published
Ritchie, Gow and Deary 2014 550 -.15 < .01 Non-college 43 Beliefs Raven`s Standard Progressive Matrizes, phonemic verbal fluency, logical memory from the Wechsler memory Scale- Revised Published
Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler and Fugelsang 2014a 505 -.27 < .01 Non-college 52 Beliefs Numeracy, WordSum Published
Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler and Fugelsang 2014b 198 -.23 .001 College 32 Beliefs WordSum Published
Sacher 2015 44 -.01 .949 College 27 Beliefs Shipley-2 abbreviated test of intelligence Unpublished
Ross 2015 558 -.14 .001 Non-college 48 Mixed Numeracy, WordSum, Syllogisms Unpublished
Kirkegaard and Bjerrekaer 2016 37078 -.26 < .001 Non-college 66 Beliefs Latent factor of several items Published
Pennycook, Ross, Koehler and Fugelsang 2016 1065 -.16 < .001 College 29 Beliefs Numeracy, WordSum Published
Zuckerman and McPhetres 2016 1477 -.25 < .001 Non-college 27 Beliefs Verbal, numerical and spatial tests Unpublished
Saribay and Yilmaz 2017 426 -.10 .039 Non-college 38 Beliefs WordSum, Base rate neutral problems Published
(1) Daws and Hampshire 2017 30762 -.10 < .001 Non-college n/a Behavior Overall score for 12 tests Published
(2) Daws and Hampshire 2017 15843 -.14 < .001 Non-college n/a Behavior Overall score for 13 tests Published
Hartman, Dieckmann, Sprenger, Stastny and DeMarree 2017 598 -.20 < .001 Non-college 35 Beliefs Numeracy, Shipley 2 tests Published
Pollet and Schnell 2017 475 -.22 < .001 Non-college 57 Beliefs Fluid intelligence Published
Stankov and Lee 2018 8883 -.19 < .01 College 41 Mixed Number series test Published
(1) Strimaitis 2018 110 -.04 .686 College 31 Beliefs Numeracy Unpublished
(2) Strimaitis 2018 185 -.14 .057 College 20 Beliefs Numeracy Unpublished
(1) Drewelies, Deeg, Huisman and Gerstorf 2018 795 .00 1.000 Non-college n/a Beliefs 15-Words Test Published
(2) Drewelies, Deeg, Huisman and Gerstorf 2018 819 -.06 .086 Non-college n/a Beliefs 15-Words Test Published
Erlandsson, Nilsson, Tinghög and Västfjäll 2018 1015 -.23 .001 Non-college 50 Behavior Numeracy Published
Leonard 2018 266 -.16 .008 Mixed 45 Beliefs Raven`s Advanced Progressive Matrices Unpublished
Foong, Hamid, Ibrahim and Haron 2018 2322 .07 .002 Non-college 48 Beliefs Montreal Cognitive Assessment Published
Ståhl and van Prooijen 2018 322 -.17 .002 Non-college 53 Mixed Numeracy, WordSum Published
Perales 2018 11654 -.08 < .001 Non-college 46 Beliefs Verbal, matching symbols, and memory test Unpublished
Cavojová, Šrol and Jurkovič 2019 317 -.26 .001 Mixed 41 Beliefs Wiener Matrizen-Test Published
Cavojová, Secară, Jurkovič and Šrol 2019 121 .19 .194 Mixed 23 Mixed Wiener Matrizen-Test Published
(1) Lowicki, Zajenkowski and van der Linden 2019 301 -.17 .004 Non-college 36 Beliefs Catell`s Culture Fair Intelligence Test 3 Published
(2) Lowicki, Zajenkowski and van der Linden 2019 200 -.07 .326 Non-college 53 Beliefs Catell`s Culture Fair Intelligence Test 3, Number Series Test, Paper Folding Test Published
Nilsson, Erlandsson and Västfjäll 2019 985 -.16 .001 Non-college 50 Mixed Numeracy Published
(1) Patel, Baker and Scherer 2019 539 -.08 .064 College n/a Beliefs Rasch Numeracy Scale Published
(2) Patel, Baker and Scherer 2019 631 -.13 .002 College 38 Beliefs Rasch Numeracy Scale Published
Betsch, Aßmann and Glöckner 2020 599 -.22 < .01 Non-college 40 Beliefs Numeracy Published
Furnham and Grover 2020 475 -.11 .020 Non-college 51 Beliefs n/a Published

Note. UEE = University Entrance Exams; GPA = Grade Point Average; n/a = no available; WAIS = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale; WISC = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; ACER = Australian Council for Educational research.

aParticipants were 15 years old on average when intelligence was measured and 26 years old when religiosity was assessed.