Religion shapes behavior only when situational cues make it salient.

Evidence

Religiously motivated behavior is no exception. For believers, religious motivations have to compete with other goals and values at any given moment, and religion will have an impact on behavior only when it becomes a salient norm, coming into awareness at that moment at the expense of other priorities. In other words, unless a believer is thinking religious thoughts every moment of her waking life, awareness of a watchful God is merely one of many competing imperatives that might influence an action at any given moment. Something in the situation must prompt believers to act according to their religious beliefs. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 153

Categorization

• XREF: Core of the reader’s argument: the fumi-e is precisely the situational prompt that either forces or destroys religious salience at the critical moment. — connects to: Religious priming effects appear only in published, not unpublished, studies — Alexandra Snell, Miron Zuckerman, and Bonnie M. Le, Does Religious Priming Induce Greater…, 41