Unconscious thoughts of God increase generosity in economic games

Evidence

I argued in chapter 1 that the concept of Big Gods stabilized cooperation levels in large groups of anonymous individuals, where reputational and reciprocity incentives are insufficient. If so, then reminders of God may not only reduce cheating, but they may also curb selfish behavior and increase generosity toward strangers. Azim Shariff and I looked at this question by making use of economic games, one of the scientific “gold standards” for the study of generosity and cooperation. We recruited participants in Vancouver, Canada, and under the pretext of playing word games, we planted thoughts of God (divine, God, spirit) in some of them without their conscious awareness. Other participants played the same word game without religious content. A third group of participants were randomly assigned to play the exact same word game, but with words such as civic, jury, and police-thereby priming them with thoughts of secular moral authority. Then all participants took part in the so-called Dictator Game, in which each participant could act like a dictator and could choose to share any portion of $10 with an anonymous stranger. They were reassured that their decision would remain confidential, and they would not meet this anonymous stranger, minimizing any concerns about disapproval or retaliation. This widely used procedure ensures a “pure” measure of participants’ generosity that is not influenced by any reciprocity incentives. It is as close to a situation as one can get, where “no one is watching.” Do participants act differently if they think, unconsciously, “God is watching?” The results showed that they did: • Givers with God on their minds offered nearly double the money compared to givers who saw neutral words prior to making their decision. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 138

Two notable field experiments, one done in a Muslim context in Morocco, the other among Hindus in Mauritius, illustrate how important the salience of religious situations is relative to religious dispositions. 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

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s stated project: this is the empirical existence proof for the ‘perceived gaze of an omniscient observer’ mechanism Norenzayan’s Big God theory posits. The ‘no one is watching’ dictum mirrors Rodrigues’ internal state in Silence.
• QUESTION: The priming was subliminal (word games) — does conscious, deliberate belief activate the same prosocial mechanism, or only automatic unconscious reminders? Relevant to why fumi-e trampling must be public and deliberate.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 138; Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 154