Christians give 300 percent more to charity on Sundays than other days.

Evidence

In a field study, Deepak Malhotra looked at the willingness of people to respond to online appeals to bid for charitable causes over an eight-week period. (These were charities unrelated to religion or churches.) Participants received the following message: “We hope you will continue to support this charity by keeping the bidding alive. Every extra dollar you bid in the auction helps us accomplish our very important mission.” The question was, would Christians respond to charity appeals more on Sundays than on other days of the week? The answer was a clear yes. On Sundays, appeals to charity were over 300 percent more effective for religious Christian individuals compared to nonreligious individuals. That’s a whopping difference that should attract the attention of charitable organizations. But wait, on any other days of the week, religious and nonreligious individuals were absolutely no different—they responded to such appeals at similar levels. And it was clear that this Sunday Effect was specific to charitable giving. When the appeals were not to charitability, but to competitiveness—“The competition is heating up! If you hope to win, you will have to bid again. Are you up for the challenge?”—the Sunday Effect disappeared. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 145

Categorization

• XREF: The Sunday Effect (repeated ritual exposure to religious reminders) maps onto the reader’s paradigm: periodic collective religious activation keeps Big God cognition salient — and links to how Rodrigues’ ritual exposure would operate.
• SHARE: The specificity — charitable appeals 300% more effective on Sundays for Christians, but zero competitive effect — is exactly the kind of concrete oddity a behavioral-science friend would enjoy.