Abstract
A common finding across many cultures has been that religious people behave more prosocially than less (or non-) religious people. Numerous priming studies have demonstrated that the activation of religious concepts via implicit and explicit cues (e.g., ‘God,’ ‘salvation,’ among many others) increases prosociality in religious people. However, the factors underlying such findings are less clear. In this review we discuss hypotheses (e.g., the supernatural punishment hypothesis) that explain the religion-prosociality link, and also how recent findings in the empirical literature converge to suggest that the divine rewards (e.g., heaven) and punishments (e.g., hell) promised by various religious traditions may play a significant role. In addition, we further discuss inconsistencies in the religion-prosociality literature, as well as existing and future psychological studies which could improve our understanding of whether, and how, concepts of divine rewards and punishments may influence prosociality.
Highlights
Among the most heated debates in moral philosophy is that between religious and non-religious people as to what constitutes ‘the good life’, and whether atheism or theism offers a sounder basis for ethics and morality (Craig, 2010; Law, 2011; Grayling, 2013)
It is argued that theistic morality is confounded by the promise of divine rewards and punishments as recompense for behaving in particular ways, and that there is a hedonistic element inherent in religious morality (Stenger, 2011)
Benjamin et al (2010) failed to find an effect of religious priming on prosociality in the Dictator Game, and found that religious primes only led to increased contributions in a ‘public goods game’ from Protestants, but not Catholics, whose contributions decreased
Summary
A common finding across many cultures has been that religious people behave more prosocially than less (or non-) religious people. Numerous priming studies have demonstrated that the activation of religious concepts via implicit and explicit cues (e.g., ‘God,’ ‘salvation,’ among many others) increases prosociality in religious people. In this review we discuss hypotheses (e.g., the supernatural punishment hypothesis) that explain the religionprosociality link, and how recent findings in the empirical literature converge to suggest that the divine rewards (e.g., heaven) and punishments (e.g., hell) promised by various religious traditions may play a significant role. We further discuss inconsistencies in the religion-prosociality literature, as well as existing and future psychological studies which could improve our understanding of whether, and how, concepts of divine rewards and punishments may influence prosociality
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