Nice little study. It speaks to falseness of common misconception about "compartmentalization" of beliefs. Whenever I argue for the inherent harm of religion and faith due its inherent undermining of reasoned thought, I usually get apologists for "moderate" religion claiming that religious beliefs can be compartmentalized such that they do not impact the believers reasoning in general outside of the specific context of their religion. This is false and not what the valid psychological concept of "compartmentalization" refers to. The concept only means that a person can hold specific beliefs that are logically opposed, but that this requires a great deal of effort to suppress any natural tendency for the mind to try and create internal coherence. IT is limited to a belief being contained from influencing a limited number of other specific beliefs. It does not mean the belief can be isolated from the whole rest of the mind and prevented from impacted cognitive processes more generally. IT will influence thoughts generally and will tend to push cognition toward forming and revising beliefs to be compatible with it. This is true not only of the content of the belief, but the epistemic basis for the belief. If a belief requires ignoring of evidence and reliance upon emotional wishful thinking (i.e., faith), then it maintaining that belief over time will tend to devalue and undermine the processes of reasoned thought in general. It might not make the person less capable of reasoned thought when forced to, but it will make them less likely to employ their capacity for reasoned thought, which takes a lot of effort and motivation to sustain.
