Religious identity alone does not make people more charitable

Evidence

In virtually all of these priming studies, reported religious involvement was unrelated to prosocial tendenies, while religious priming made a substantial difference. In addition, religious involvement was unrelated to helping rates in the Good Samaritan study and similar ones conducted in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Yet several other studies conducted outside North America and Europe, including a fifteen-society comparative investigation, have indeed found a clear link between religious involvement and prosociality. How can we explain this apparent puzzle? — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 186 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Erik Duhaime approached shopkeepers in Marrakech, Morocco, and asked them to choose one of the following three options: (1) I give you 20 dirhams (about $2.50); (2) I give charity 60 dirhams; or (3) I give you 10 dirhams and charity 30 dirhams. (This is yet another version of the Dictator Game, discussed earlier.) Critically, sometimes he approached them during the Muslim call to prayer, sometimes not. When the call to prayer was being sounded out from minarets throughout the city, 100 percent of the shopkeepers chose option 2, the most charitable option, compared to only around 60 percent of shopkeepers when he asked at times when the call to prayer was not audible. … In another field experiment, Dimitris Xygalatas went further and compared the relative effects of religious situations and religious dispositions on selfish behavior. He randomly assigned Hindu participants in Mauritius to play an economic game either in a religious setting (a temple) or in a comparable secular setting (a restaurant). Participants were given the opportunity to withdraw from a shared pool of money that otherwise would benefit the entire group. He found that participants who played the game in the temple withdrew 170 rupees, compared to 231 rupees on average when playing in the restaurant. Prior to the field experiment, participants had rated their intensity of religiosity. How religiously involved participants said they were had little bearing on how much money they withdrew from the shared pool—only the situation where they played mattered. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 154 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Personal religiosity does not predict generosity in experiments.; Secular moral authority primes generosity as much as God does. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 141; Religious situations boost prosociality more than personal devotion does — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 154 (+3 more)

Related

• Religiosity predicts helping only when one can be seen doing it (similarity 0.94)
• Audible religious calls trigger generosity in non-Western settings (similarity 0.90)
• Personal religiosity does not predict generosity in experiments. (similarity 0.90)
• Situation beats stated religiosity in predicting selfishness (similarity 0.89)
• Religious situations boost prosociality more than personal devotion does (similarity 0.89)
• Self-reported religiosity predicts prosociality only outside secular Western societies (similarity 0.87)
• Witnessing an intense ritual boosts prosociality as much as participating in it (similarity 0.86)
• Secular moral authority primes generosity as much as God does. (similarity 0.83)
• Daily communal prayer predicts greater cooperation in public goods games (similarity 0.82)
• Secular authority primes increase stranger generosity as much as religious primes do. (similarity 0.82)
• Personal religiosity is unrelated to generosity in economic games. (similarity 0.82)
• Priming God-thoughts makes believers more generous only toward fellow believers. (similarity 0.81)
• Religious priming boosts prosocial behavior only for believers, not non-believers. (similarity 0.80)
• Prosocial religious groups outcompeted rivals through internal cooperation. (similarity 0.80)
• Market integration and Big God religion independently predict prosocial generosity cross-culturally (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Religiosity predicts helping only when one can be seen doing it #qualifies (0.82)
• Religious situations boost prosociality more than personal devotion does #expands (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 154
• Self-reported religiosity predicts prosociality only outside secular Western societies #qualifies (0.80) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 186
• Chronic, communal, in-group religious practice drives the prosociality effect #expands (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 183