Abusaleh Shariff
Biographic Data
| ID | 339891 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Abusaleh Shariff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Abusaleh |
| FAMILY NAME | Shariff |
| SIGNATURE | SHARIFF A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4444-460X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 400 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
End of world beliefs are common, diverse, and predict how people perceive and respond to global risks
Do you believe the world will come to an end within your lifetime, and does that belief change the way you see existential threats to humanity? One third of Americans answer yes to the first question; we venture to answer the second question here. Stories about the end of the world are historically and globally prevalent and come in many flavors. End of world beliefs have been hypothesized to shape processes of risk perception and social behavior…
Perceived mental illness is associated with judgments of less agency, yet more moral wrongness
For a set of 10 conditions (e.g. homosexuality, obesity, drug addiction), we explored associations between moral judgments, agency evaluations, and perceptions that a condition is a mental illness. In a preregistered study ( n = 1,249 U.S. adults), we found that perceptions of lower agency were associated with decreased moral wrongness judgments, as well as increased perceptions of mental illness, yet perceived moral wrongness was the most robust…
Fears about artificial intelligence across 20 countries and six domains of application
The frontier of artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly moving, raising fears and concerns whenever AI is deployed in a new occupation. Some of these fears are legitimate and should be addressed by AI developers-but others may result from psychological barriers, suppressing the uptake of a beneficial technology. Here, we show that country-level variations across occupations can be predicted by a psychological model at the individual level. Ind…
If I Could Do It, So Can They: Among the Rich, Those With Humbler Origins are Less Sensitive to the Difficulties of the Poor
Americans venerate rags-to-riches stories. Here we show that people view those who became rich more positively than those born rich and expect the Became Rich to be more sympathetic toward social welfare (Studies 1a and b). However, we also find that these intuitions are misguided. Surveys of wealthy individuals (Studies 2a and b) reveal that, compared with the Born Rich, the Became Rich perceive improving one’s socioeconomic conditions as less d…
Effecting Equity and Equality of Opportunity in a Socially Diverse India
The social, geographic and economic diversity of India is a well-known fact. Reputed for its avowed adherence to the principle of ‘unity in diversity’, this country faces several real, day-to-day challenges that it must overcome. This essay explains a few puzzles in the evolution, conceptualisation, legalisation and implementation of the ‘quota–reservation’ policies in India. It argues that seemingly logical and fair affirmative actions through ‘…
Overestimating Reported Prejudice Causes Democrats to Believe Disadvantaged Groups Are Less Electable
Four studies show that Democrats overestimate the explicit prejudice reported by the American electorate, leading them to perceive presidential candidates from disadvantaged groups as less electable. Study 1 (MTurk; n = 728) found that Democrats overestimated the percentage of Americans who say they would not vote for presidential candidates from disadvantaged groups. Study 2 (MTurk; n = 597) replicated this finding and demonstrated that Democrat…
Political differences in free will belief are associated with differences in moralization
performed it (Studies 7a-d). These results are consistent with our theory that political differences in free will belief are at least partly explicable by conservatives' tendency to moralize, which strengthens motivation to justify blame with stronger belief in free will and personal accountability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we discuss evidence from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on nav…
Universals and variations in moral decisions made in 42 countries by 70,000 participants
When do people find it acceptable to sacrifice one life to save many? Cross-cultural studies suggested a complex pattern of universals and variations in the way people approach this question, but data were often based on small samples from a small number of countries outside of the Western world. Here we analyze responses to three sacrificial dilemmas by 70,000 participants in 10 languages and 42 countries. In every country, the three dilemmas di…
Recognizing the Impact of Covid-19 on the Poor Alters Attitudes Towards Poverty and Inequality
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
Shifting attributions for poverty motivates opposition to inequality and enhances egalitarianism
Machine behaviour
The development, validation, and clinical implications of the Microaggressions Against Religious Individuals Scale (Maris)
Religious Complexity and Intergroup Bias
Religion is associated with both positive and negative outcomes, such as prosocial or discriminatory attitudes and behavior. Previous research has linked particular styles of religious belief, such as fundamentalism, to these kinds of outcomes; however, their explanatory power is necessarily limited by their content specificity. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between two types of religious complexity, the complexity of people’s th…
Supernatural norm enforcement: Thinking about karma and God reduces selfishness among believers
Drivers are blamed more than their automated cars when both make mistakes
The Moral Machine experiment
Only believers rely on God? A new measure to investigate Catholic faith automatic associations and their relationship with psychological well-being
Recent theorists have argued that theistic cognitions are so deeply embedded in human cultures that nearly all people experience implicit religious thoughts, even those who consider themselves as atheists or agnostics. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of a Catholic Faith Single Category Implicit Association Test (CF SC-IAT; Karpinski & Steinman, 2006), the degree of implicit- explicit dissociation across different religious groups (pract…
The development and validation of the Microaggressions Against Non-religious Individuals Scale (Manris)
The growing non-religious minority remains among the most distrusted groups in America. We examined how non-religious individuals experience microaggressionsâ subtle prejudicial verbal and behavioral acts. U.S. participants who self-identified as being non-religious (N ? 1,485) were recruited to develop and validate a Microaggressions Against Non-religious Individuals Scale (MANRIS). Items from MANRIS were created using prior literature, expert f…
Are wrathful gods the killer app of religion? Two nits to pick with Johnson’s God is Watching You
In God is Watching You, Johnson has produced a phenomenally written (and cleverly titled) synthesis of the supernatural punishment hypothesis. He has persuasively argued for the importance of super
SBNR Identity: The Role of Impersonal God Representations, Individualistic Spirituality, and Dissimilarity With Religious Groups
We conducted two studies investigating the extent to which self-identification as Spiritual but not Religious (SBNR) was associated with (H1) the development of idiosyncratic religious beliefs and exposure to religious diversity and/or (H2) negative attitudes toward organized religion and being hurt by members of a religious group. In Study 1, SBNRs scored higher than religious and nonreligious participants on belief in God as an impersonal cosmi…
Minority size and socio-economic inequalities: A case study of Muslim minority in India
The authors investigate the relationship between Muslim minority size and inequality using a new cross-sectional dataset of 599 Indian districts. The authors review existing studies, propose a new population growth inequality theory, and develop three hypotheses. A newly constructed multidimensional index of social well-being is used as a proxy for intergroup inequality. A multi-level mixed effects regression analysis with controls for urbanizati…
Forgive us our trespasses: Priming a forgiving (but not a punishing) god increases unethical behavior
Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice
Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized …
Mean Gods Make Good People: Different Views of God Predict Cheating Behavior
Fear of supernatural punishment may serve as a deterrent to counternormative behavior, even in anonymous situations free from human social monitoring. The authors conducted two studies to test this hypothesis, examining the relationship between cheating behavior in an anonymous setting and views of God as loving and compassionate, or as an angry and punishing agent. Overall levels of religious devotion or belief in God did not directly predict ch…
Shifting attributions for poverty motivates opposition to inequality and enhances egalitarianism
SBNR Identity: The Role of Impersonal God Representations, Individualistic Spirituality, and Dissimilarity With Religious Groups
We conducted two studies investigating the extent to which self-identification as Spiritual but not Religious (SBNR) was associated with (H1) the development of idiosyncratic religious beliefs and exposure to religious diversity and/or (H2) negative attitudes toward organized religion and being hurt by members of a religious group. In Study 1, SBNRs scored higher than religious and nonreligious participants on belief in God as an impersonal cosmi…
Supernatural norm enforcement: Thinking about karma and God reduces selfishness among believers
Free to punish: A motivated account of free will belief
Belief in free will is a pervasive phenomenon that has important consequences for prosocial actions and punitive judgments, but little research has investigated why free will beliefs are so widespread. Across 5 studies using experimental, survey, and archival data and multiple measures of free will belief, we tested the hypothesis that a key factor promoting belief in free will is a fundamental desire to hold others morally responsible for their …
Recognizing the Impact of Covid-19 on the Poor Alters Attitudes Towards Poverty and Inequality
The Irrelevance of National Strategies? Rural Poverty Dynamics in States and Regions of India, 1993–2005
The Devil's Advocate: Secular Arguments Diminish both Implicit and Explicit Religious Belief
The religion-science debate has heated up in recent years, with polemical arguments on both side decrying the other. Given that the dominant view is of religiousness as a relatively fixed personality trait, all of this furor seems excessive. Interested in just how malleable religiousness is, we exposed half of our participants to an argument against the existence of God by Richard Dawkins. Those exposed to Dawkins' arguments showed lower self-rep…
Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles
The accessibility of religious beliefs
Drivers are blamed more than their automated cars when both make mistakes
Overestimating Reported Prejudice Causes Democrats to Believe Disadvantaged Groups Are Less Electable
Four studies show that Democrats overestimate the explicit prejudice reported by the American electorate, leading them to perceive presidential candidates from disadvantaged groups as less electable. Study 1 (MTurk; n = 728) found that Democrats overestimated the percentage of Americans who say they would not vote for presidential candidates from disadvantaged groups. Study 2 (MTurk; n = 597) replicated this finding and demonstrated that Democrat…
Political differences in free will belief are associated with differences in moralization
performed it (Studies 7a-d). These results are consistent with our theory that political differences in free will belief are at least partly explicable by conservatives' tendency to moralize, which strengthens motivation to justify blame with stronger belief in free will and personal accountability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Fears about artificial intelligence across 20 countries and six domains of application
The frontier of artificial intelligence (AI) is constantly moving, raising fears and concerns whenever AI is deployed in a new occupation. Some of these fears are legitimate and should be addressed by AI developers-but others may result from psychological barriers, suppressing the uptake of a beneficial technology. Here, we show that country-level variations across occupations can be predicted by a psychological model at the individual level. Ind…
Minority size and socio-economic inequalities: A case study of Muslim minority in India
The authors investigate the relationship between Muslim minority size and inequality using a new cross-sectional dataset of 599 Indian districts. The authors review existing studies, propose a new population growth inequality theory, and develop three hypotheses. A newly constructed multidimensional index of social well-being is used as a proxy for intergroup inequality. A multi-level mixed effects regression analysis with controls for urbanizati…
Child Survival: A Village-Level Investigation of Some Cultural Factors Associated with Morbidity and Mortality in South India
Factors associated with infant and child morbidity and mortality in India are analyzed. The data are for 1981 and 1985 for four villages located near Bangalore and were collected using both survey and anthropological methods. The study focuses on the traditional factors affecting childrens health that will need to be taken into account when developing effective modern health policies. (ANNOTATION)
Women workers: Gender equality and female autonomy
Demographic Effects of Economic Reversals in sub-Saharan Africa
God Is Watching You: Priming God Concepts Increases Prosocial Behavior in an Anonymous Economic Game
We present two studies aimed at resolving experimentally whether religion increases prosocial behavior in the anonymous dictator game. Subjects allocated more money to anonymous strangers when God concepts were implicitly activated than when neutral or no concepts were activated. This effect was at least as large as that obtained when concepts associated with secular moral institutions were primed. A trait measure of self-reported religiosity did…
The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality
We examine empirical evidence for religious prosociality, the hypothesis that religions facilitate costly behaviors that benefit other people. Although sociological surveys reveal an association between self-reports of religiosity and prosociality, experiments measuring religiosity and actual prosocial behavior suggest that this association emerges primarily in contexts where reputational concerns are heightened. Experimentally induced religious …
The Devil's Advocate: Secular Arguments Diminish both Implicit and Explicit Religious Belief
The religion-science debate has heated up in recent years, with polemical arguments on both side decrying the other. Given that the dominant view is of religiousness as a relatively fixed personality trait, all of this furor seems excessive. Interested in just how malleable religiousness is, we exposed half of our participants to an argument against the existence of God by Richard Dawkins. Those exposed to Dawkins' arguments showed lower self-rep…
The accessibility of religious beliefs
Knowing who’s boss: Implicit perceptions of status from the nonverbal expression of pride
Evolutionary theory suggests that the universal recognition of nonverbal expressions of emotions functions to enhance fitness. Specifically, emotion expressions may send survival-relevant messages to other social group members, who have the capacity to automatically interpret these signals. In the present research, we used 3 different implicit association methodologies to test whether the nonverbal expression of pride sends a functional, automati…
Rural Income and Employment Diversity in India During 1994 and 2005
This article assesses the structure of rural income and employment according to source in India. It probes the size and role of ‘rural nonfarm employment’ in poverty alleviation. Data from two nationally representative rural sample surveys (33230 and 27010 households respectively) with reference years 1993–1994 and 2004–2005 are subjected to multinomial logit and Censored Least Absolute Deviation Model (CLAD) regressions to explore importance of …
The Irrelevance of National Strategies? Rural Poverty Dynamics in States and Regions of India, 1993–2005
Big gods were made for big groups
Mean Gods Make Good People: Different Views of God Predict Cheating Behavior
Fear of supernatural punishment may serve as a deterrent to counternormative behavior, even in anonymous situations free from human social monitoring. The authors conducted two studies to test this hypothesis, examining the relationship between cheating behavior in an anonymous setting and views of God as loving and compassionate, or as an angry and punishing agent. Overall levels of religious devotion or belief in God did not directly predict ch…
Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice
Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized …
Free Will and Punishment: A Mechanistic View of Human Nature Reduces Retribution
If free-will beliefs support attributions of moral responsibility, then reducing these beliefs should make people less retributive in their attitudes about punishment. Four studies tested this prediction using both measured and manipulated free-will beliefs. Study 1 found that people with weaker free-will beliefs endorsed less retributive, but not consequentialist, attitudes regarding punishment of criminals. Subsequent studies showed that learni…
Religions as cultural solutions to social living.
Free to punish: A motivated account of free will belief
Belief in free will is a pervasive phenomenon that has important consequences for prosocial actions and punitive judgments, but little research has investigated why free will beliefs are so widespread. Across 5 studies using experimental, survey, and archival data and multiple measures of free will belief, we tested the hypothesis that a key factor promoting belief in free will is a fundamental desire to hold others morally responsible for their …
Negative Stereotypes Cause Christians to Underperform in and Disidentify With Science
Despite Christians being a religious majority in the United States, relatively few pursue higher education and careers in science. Our studies show that stereotypes about Christians being less competent in science than other groups are recognized by both Christians and non-Christians and are openly endorsed by non-Christians (Study 1). Our studies further demonstrate that when these stereotypes become salient, Christians are less interested in an…
Religious Priming: A Meta-Analysis With a Focus on Prosociality
Priming has emerged as a valuable tool within the psychological study of religion, allowing for tests of religion’s causal effect on a number of psychological outcomes, such as prosocial behavior. As the literature has grown, questions about the reliability and boundary conditions of religious priming have arisen. We use a combination of traditional effect-size analyses, p-curve analyses, and adjustments for publication bias to evaluate the robus…
Income Mobility Breeds Tolerance for Income Inequality: Cross-National and Experimental Evidence
American politicians often justify income inequality by referencing the opportunities people have to move between economic stations. Though past research has shown associations between income mobility and resistance to wealth redistribution policies, no experimental work has tested whether perceptions of mobility influence tolerance for inequality. In this article, we present a cross-national comparison showing that income mobility is associated …
Forgive us our trespasses: Priming a forgiving (but not a punishing) god increases unethical behavior
Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles
The Moral Machine experiment
Only believers rely on God? A new measure to investigate Catholic faith automatic associations and their relationship with psychological well-being
Recent theorists have argued that theistic cognitions are so deeply embedded in human cultures that nearly all people experience implicit religious thoughts, even those who consider themselves as atheists or agnostics. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of a Catholic Faith Single Category Implicit Association Test (CF SC-IAT; Karpinski & Steinman, 2006), the degree of implicit- explicit dissociation across different religious groups (pract…
The development and validation of the Microaggressions Against Non-religious Individuals Scale (Manris)
The growing non-religious minority remains among the most distrusted groups in America. We examined how non-religious individuals experience microaggressionsâ subtle prejudicial verbal and behavioral acts. U.S. participants who self-identified as being non-religious (N ? 1,485) were recruited to develop and validate a Microaggressions Against Non-religious Individuals Scale (MANRIS). Items from MANRIS were created using prior literature, expert f…
Are wrathful gods the killer app of religion? Two nits to pick with Johnson’s God is Watching You
In God is Watching You, Johnson has produced a phenomenally written (and cleverly titled) synthesis of the supernatural punishment hypothesis. He has persuasively argued for the importance of super
Psychology (35 works) · Social Psychology (31 works) · Political science (19 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (18 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (11 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (8 works)