In God We Trust: Effects of spirituality and religion on economic decision making

Abstract

BackgroundSpirituality and religion (S/R) are highly prevalent and relate to various aspects of mental health. However, S/R is multifaceted, and cognitive and behavioral mechanisms of S/R are unclear. Spiritual beliefs and attitudes, and regular practice of religious rituals, may facilitate general consistency of behavior and attenuate impulsive reactivity to loss and gains. MethodsWe utilized a sophisticated and complex economic decision-making paradigm – the Sequential Investment Task – to probe effects of S/R on behavioral adaptation to positive and negative outcomes (both real and fictive) within a diverse community-based sample (n = 242). S/R was assessed with a wide range of self-report measures. ResultsCollectively, facets of religion had significant effects on task variables, suggesting that religious involvement is associated with more consistency in decision making, and less behavioral change resulting from real gains and fictive losses, but not real losses. Conversely, spirituality was not significantly tied to behavior overall, though some facets (i.e., importance of spirituality and belief in God) predicted greater behavioral consistency. DiscussionThis study suggests that religion, but not spirituality, is associated with greater uniformity of behavioral responding, less reactivity to positive outcomes, and less reactivity to perceived losses, when making investment decisions.