Church attendance is not what triggers the felt divine gaze
Evidence
On Sundays, then, religious folks are more charitable and less likely to indulge in sin. But why do Sundays evoke such good behavior? Will Gervais and I wondered whether these intriguing Sunday Effects are partly caused by greater levels of supernatural surveillance. We reasoned that Christians may be more charitable and less sinful on Sundays, because of all the days of the week, Sundays in particular are when thoughts of God are most likely to come to mind. This in turn would provoke greater feelings of being watched on Sundays, but not on other days. We asked Christian and nonreligious participants to complete a measure of “public self-awareness” throughout the week, over a period of several weeks. Participants had no clue that this was a study about religion. They completed an instrument that measures feelings of being under social surveillance. They expressed agreement with statements such as: “Right now I am self-conscious about the way I look,” and “Right now I am concerned about what other people think of me.” On average, Christians and nonbelievers did not differ in public self-awareness. On any day of the week except Sunday, there were no differences. However, on Sunday, and Sunday only, Christians expressed greater feelings of being watched compared to nonbelievers, and compared to other Christians who completed these questions on other days. This pattern of results mimics exactly the Sunday Effects found for charitability and for porn consumption. Importantly, this effect was not simply due to Christians attending church on Sundays. Even when we matched participants on frequency of church attendance, there was a greater tendency to feel watched on Sundays. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 147
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: The ‘felt supernatural surveillance’ mechanism is precisely the perceived omniscient observer the reader wants to trace in Father Rodrigues — and matching on attendance shows the trigger is cognitive, not ritual.
Related
- Being watched by God intensifies awareness of social surveillance on Sundays (similarity 0.90)
- Omniscient God thoughts are situationally activated, not chronically present (similarity 0.88)
- Religious observance shifts the timing of sin rather than reducing its total (similarity 0.82)
- Thoughts of watchful gods make people behave prosocially even when anonymous (similarity 0.78)