Do sacred texts glorifying Allah facilitate Muslims’ trust and trustworthiness? Evidence from field experiments in China

Abstract

The viewpoint that sacred religious texts related to prosocial values may facilitate prosocial tendencies has many proponents. However, many sacred texts addressing fundamental doctrines are unrelated to prosocial values. In this study, the Muslims participating in the trust game learned texts excerpted from the Quran and the Hadith. These texts focus only on glorifying Allah and are unrelated to prosocial morality. This property of the sample allowed us to examine whether sacred texts of this kind could facilitate Muslims’ trust and trustworthiness. The results revealed that: (1) although the Muslims showed trust and trustworthiness to others, learning sacred texts glorifying Allah had no effect on either of these characteristics; and (2) unconditional kindness and reciprocity could explain trust and trustworthiness, but learning texts of this kind could not facilitate these prosocial tendencies by affecting their function. The results of this study could contribute to a more complete understanding of how sacred texts may affect prosociality.