Abstract
Does religion promote prosocial behaviour? Despite numerous publications that seem to answer this question affirmatively, divergent results from recent meta-analyses and pre-registered replication efforts suggest that the issue is not yet settled. Uncertainty lingers around (i) whether the effects of religious cognition on prosocial behaviour were obtained through implicit cognitive processes, explicit cognitive processes or both and (ii) whether religious cognition increases generosity only among people disinclined to share with anonymous strangers. Here, we report two experiments designed to address these concerns. In Experiment 1, we sought to replicate Shariff and Norenzayan's demonstration of the effects of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers to anonymous strangers; unlike Shariff and Norenzayan, however, we used an online environment where anonymity was virtually assured. In Experiment 2, we introduced a ‘taking’ option to allow greater expression of baseline selfishness. In both experiments, we sought to activate religious cognition implicitly and explicitly, and we investigated the possibility that religious priming depends on the extent to which subjects view God as a punishing, authoritarian figure. Results indicated that in both experiments, religious subjects transferred more money on average than did non-religious subjects. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis that implicit religious priming did not increase Dictator Game transfers in either experiment, even among religious subjects. Collectively, the two experiments furnished support for a small but reliable effect of explicit priming, though among religious subjects only. Neither experiment supported the hypothesis that the effect of religious priming depends on viewing God as a punishing figure. Finally, in a meta-analysis of relevant studies, we found that the overall effect of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers was small and did not statistically differ from zero.
Highlights
Subject Category: Psychology and cognitive neuroscience Subject Areas: psychology/cognition/behaviour Keywords: religious priming, Dictator Game, religion, cooperation, prosocial
It is best to build up a body of evidence piece by piece, and we focused on the following empirical question—‘does religious priming increase Dictator Game (DG) transfers?’ It is important to answer this question clearly if theories regarding cultural evolution and religious prosociality are to stand atop a firm empirical foundation
We report R2change as the effect size for analyses testing whether the effect of religious priming is moderated by the extent to which subjects view God as a punishing, authoritarian figure
Summary
Subject Category: Psychology and cognitive neuroscience Subject Areas: psychology/cognition/behaviour Keywords: religious priming, Dictator Game, religion, cooperation, prosocial. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis that implicit religious priming did not increase Dictator Game transfers in either experiment, even among religious subjects. Prosocial encouragement features prominently in the world’s major religions [1] These religions urge adherents to love neighbours or even strangers as they would themselves (e.g. Leviticus 19:18; Leviticus 19:34; Mark 12:31), to provide charity to those in need (e.g. Surah Al-Baqarah 2:83; Mark 10:17–23) and to act toward others as they would have others act toward them (e.g. Matthew 7:12; Talmud Shabbat 31a). Second is a broader set of claims fashioned into a cultural evolutionary model of religious prosociality [4,5] (for related proposals, see [6 –9]) According to this model, cultures have varied in the extent to which deities and other supernatural agents are understood to involve themselves in human affairs and care about prosociality or other moralized behaviours. This model would help account simultaneously for the rise of large-scale cooperative societies, and for the prevalence of prosocial norms across the contemporary religious landscape [5]
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