Supernatural punishment explains religion’s prosocial effects better than ideomotor priming

Evidence

These findings, together with the experimental results described earlier, are difficult to reconcile with an account that is solely driven by ideomotor processes, which presumably would lead to the opposite expectation. A benevolent and kind God would more clearly fit the prosocial stereotype that should cause greater prosocial behavior and less antisocial behavior, and that reminders of a benevolent God would reduce punishing behavior. Yet we find the exact opposite pattern, which is more consistent with a supernatural punishment explanation. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 174

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• DEEPTHINKING: Decisively discriminates between two rival mechanisms (ideomotor association vs. supernatural monitoring), showing the benevolent-God stereotype predicts the exact opposite of observed results — a model of how to test a causal mechanism against its alternative.

Related

• Supernatural monitoring caused the God-prosociality association, not the reverse (similarity 0.91)
• Ideomotor accounts predict kind Gods matter while watcher accounts predict punishing ones (similarity 0.90)
• Supernatural belief works through the same surveillance mechanism that generates prosocial behavior (similarity 0.88)
• Supernatural monitoring causally precedes ideomotor associations, not the reverse. (similarity 0.87)
• Supernatural punishment psychology is agreed upon despite evolutionary disputes (similarity 0.87)
• Vengeful Gods make more potent moral monitors than kind Gods (similarity 0.87)
• Benevolent God concepts fail to suppress antisocial behavior, unlike punishing gods. (similarity 0.86)
• Thoughts of watchful gods make people behave prosocially even when anonymous (similarity 0.86)
• Religious priming effects are testable against the ideomotor alternative (similarity 0.85)
• Supernatural monitoring, not moral emotions alone, scaled prosociality to mass societies (similarity 0.84)
• Religious primes fail to affect atheists, disproving a purely ideomotor account (similarity 0.84)
• Belief that God punishes reduces people’s willingness to punish wrongdoers themselves. (similarity 0.82)
• Situation beats stated religiosity in predicting selfishness (similarity 0.82)
• Mind-reading capacities are prerequisites for believers to interact with and be policed by gods (similarity 0.81)
• Religious priming boosts prosocial behavior only for believers, not non-believers. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Prosocial behavior has multiple secular sources beyond religion #expands (0.75) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 248