Personal religiosity does not predict generosity in experiments.

Evidence

Participants’ self-reports about their belief in God, or religiosity levels, were unrelated to how much they offered to the anonymous recipient. This nonresult has been found in most of the experiments reported here. Therefore, contrary to the sociological findings, there was little evidence of an intrinsic prosociality on the part of believers. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 142

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Confirms the chapter-1 argument that situational supernatural reminders, not intrinsic belief, drive prosociality.

Related

• Religious identity alone does not make people more charitable (similarity 0.88)
• Situation beats stated religiosity in predicting selfishness (similarity 0.88)
• Personal religiosity is unrelated to generosity in economic games. (similarity 0.87)
• Religiosity predicts helping only when one can be seen doing it (similarity 0.86)
• Audible religious calls trigger generosity in non-Western settings (similarity 0.84)
• Self-reported religiosity predicts prosociality only outside secular Western societies (similarity 0.84)
• Secular moral authority primes generosity as much as God does. (similarity 0.83)
• Secular authority primes increase stranger generosity as much as religious primes do. (similarity 0.82)
• Situational religious reminders, not personal religiosity, drive prosocial behavior (similarity 0.80)
• Religious situations boost prosociality more than personal devotion does (similarity 0.79)
• Religious priming boosts prosocial behavior only for believers, not non-believers. (similarity 0.79)
• Religious people exaggerate their attendance and charity in self-reports. (similarity 0.79)
• Witnessing an intense ritual boosts prosociality as much as participating in it (similarity 0.78)
• God priming increases both generosity and felt watching only in believers (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Religious identity alone does not make people more charitable #corroborates (0.95) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 145
• Situation beats stated religiosity in predicting selfishness #corroborates (0.85) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 154
• Religious situations boost prosociality more than personal devotion does #contradicts (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 251
• Religiosity predicts helping only when one can be seen doing it #qualifies (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 181
• Self-reported religiosity predicts prosociality only outside secular Western societies #qualifies (0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 186