Cindel White
Biographic Data
| ID | 4438346 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cindel White |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cindel |
| FAMILY NAME | White |
| SIGNATURE | WHITE C |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6050-2449 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
How Karma Harms and Helps Generosity Toward Those in Need
Three preregistered cross-cultural studies ( N = 6,049 across India, Singapore, and the United States) tested how belief in karma shapes victim blaming and helping. Study 1 found that belief in karmic causality positively predicts a variety of system-justifying beliefs that legitimate social inequalities, but experimental reminders of karma also encouraged generosity toward others experiencing financial hardship. Studies 2 and 3 tested whether ka…
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…
Karma rewards me and punishes you: Self–other divergences in karma beliefs
The roles of anthropomorphism, spirituality, and gratitude in pro-environmental attitudes
God, are You There? Coping and Emotion Regulation Among Religious, Never Religious, and Formerly Religious People Experiencing a Spiritual Crisis
Offloading punishment to karma: Thinking about karma reduces the punishment of transgressors
Punishment and the threat thereof can help enforce social norms, but enacting punishment is often costly. To avoid these costs, individuals may prefer to offload the responsibility of punishment to others or to cultural institutions. We propose that shared beliefs about supernatural punishment contribute to minimizing the costs of interpersonal punishment by allowing people to offload punishment to supernatural entities. In a Third Party Punishme…
Third-party punishment, vigilante justice, or karma? Understanding the dynamics of interpersonal and cosmic justice
Victim blaming and belief in karma
Witnessing the suffering of innocent victims can motivate observers to interpret the situation in ways that justify that suffering, such as viewing victims as more personally responsible or possessing negative traits. In a pre‐registered cross‐cultural experiment ( N = 831 from India, Singapore and the USA), we tested whether belief in karma—a supernatural force that can be used to explain current misfortune as payback for past misdeeds—affects p…
Children's moral evaluations of and behaviors toward people who are curious about religion and science
Although children exhibit curiosity regarding science, questions remain regarding how children evaluate others' curiosity and whether evaluations differ across domains that prioritize faith (e.g., religion) versus those that value questioning (e.g., science). In Study 1 (n = 115 5- to 8-year-olds; 49% female; 66% White), children evaluated actors who were curious, ignorant and non-curious, or knowledgeable about religion or science; curiosity eli…
Adults Show Positive Moral Evaluations of Curiosity About Religion
Four experiments investigated the perceived virtue of curiosity about religion. Adults from the United States made moral judgments regarding targets who exhibited curiosity, possessed relevant knowledge, or lacked both curiosity and knowledge about religion and comparison topics (e.g., science). Participants attributed greater moral goodness to targets who displayed curiosity compared with targets who were ignorant or knowledgeable about the doma…
Cultural variation in the motivational correlates of gratitude
Gratitude confers a sense of indebtedness to repay the benefactor, which poses a limitation on one's autonomy-an aversive experience in individualist cultures. Yet, gratitude is frequently valued and expressed in individualist cultures such as the United States. One solution to this dilemma is that gratitude has different aspects: It confers a sense of obligation but also strengthens social relations. Thus, gratitude might be associated more stro…
Varieties of gratitude: Identifying patterns of emotional responses to positive experiences attributed to God, karma, and human benefactors
Good fortune can be attributed to many sources, including other people, personal efforts, and various theistic and nontheistic supernatural forces (e.g., God, karma). Four studies (total N = 4,579) of religiously diverse samples from the United States and the United Kingdom investigated the distinct emotional reactions to recalled positive experiences attributed to natural and supernatural benefactors. We found that the hallmarks of interpersonal…
Who Is Your Biggest Critic? Cultural Variation in Moral Judgments of the Self and Others
People are motivated to punish others who commit immoral actions when they believe the person willingly committed such an act. Compared with European American individuals, East Asian individuals are more punitive of wrongdoings, yet are less likely to attribute actions to the person. Here, we drew on research in cultural psychology to test the prediction that Chinese individuals are more punitive in part because they are more self-critical than E…
A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-…
Do reminders of God increase willingness to take risks
Navigating between punishment, avoidance, and instruction: The form and function of responses to moral violations varies across adult and child transgressors
Karma and God: Convergent and divergent mental representations of supernatural norm enforcement
Few studies have directly examined mental representations of supernaturally monitored morality, as they are reflected in world religions as conceptions of karma and God.In seven samples (total N= 3861), we use an open-ended free-list task to investigate participants' mental representations of God and karma, among culturally diverse samples from the USA and India, including Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and non-religious participants.Key results sho…
How is analytical thinking related to religious belief? A test of three theoretical models
The replicability and importance of the correlation between cognitive style and religious belief have been debated. Moreover, the literature has not examined distinct psychological accounts of this relationship. We tested the replicability of the correlation (N = 5284; students and broader samples of Canadians, Americans, and Indians); while testing three accounts of how cognitive style comes to be related to belief in God, karma, witchcraft, and…
Supernatural norm enforcement: Thinking about karma and God reduces selfishness among believers
Individual Differences in Activation of the Parental Care Motivational System: An Empirical Distinction Between Protection and Nurturance
Previous research reveals that individual differences in parental caregiving motives have implications (among both parents and nonparents) for a wide range of psychological outcomes. Here we report reanalyses of existing data sets to examine the extent to which these outcomes are uniquely predicted by two conceptually distinct factors underlying the parental caregiving motive: protection and nurturance. In doing so, we also psychometrically valid…
What are the causes and consequences of belief in karma
The scientific study of religion has thus far overlooked the study of beliefs and practices that are centered on the notion of karma: ethical causation across one or different lifetimes. Here, we outline a set of pertinent questions about karmic beliefs and practices ripe for research, namely (1) their cultural distribution around the world, (2) their structure and content, and (3) their psychological and cultural antecedents and consequences
Supernatural norm enforcement: Thinking about karma and God reduces selfishness among believers
Who Is Your Biggest Critic? Cultural Variation in Moral Judgments of the Self and Others
People are motivated to punish others who commit immoral actions when they believe the person willingly committed such an act. Compared with European American individuals, East Asian individuals are more punitive of wrongdoings, yet are less likely to attribute actions to the person. Here, we drew on research in cultural psychology to test the prediction that Chinese individuals are more punitive in part because they are more self-critical than E…
What are the causes and consequences of belief in karma
The scientific study of religion has thus far overlooked the study of beliefs and practices that are centered on the notion of karma: ethical causation across one or different lifetimes. Here, we outline a set of pertinent questions about karmic beliefs and practices ripe for research, namely (1) their cultural distribution around the world, (2) their structure and content, and (3) their psychological and cultural antecedents and consequences
Individual Differences in Activation of the Parental Care Motivational System: An Empirical Distinction Between Protection and Nurturance
Previous research reveals that individual differences in parental caregiving motives have implications (among both parents and nonparents) for a wide range of psychological outcomes. Here we report reanalyses of existing data sets to examine the extent to which these outcomes are uniquely predicted by two conceptually distinct factors underlying the parental caregiving motive: protection and nurturance. In doing so, we also psychometrically valid…
Supernatural norm enforcement: Thinking about karma and God reduces selfishness among believers
How is analytical thinking related to religious belief? A test of three theoretical models
The replicability and importance of the correlation between cognitive style and religious belief have been debated. Moreover, the literature has not examined distinct psychological accounts of this relationship. We tested the replicability of the correlation (N = 5284; students and broader samples of Canadians, Americans, and Indians); while testing three accounts of how cognitive style comes to be related to belief in God, karma, witchcraft, and…
Navigating between punishment, avoidance, and instruction: The form and function of responses to moral violations varies across adult and child transgressors
Karma and God: Convergent and divergent mental representations of supernatural norm enforcement
Few studies have directly examined mental representations of supernaturally monitored morality, as they are reflected in world religions as conceptions of karma and God.In seven samples (total N= 3861), we use an open-ended free-list task to investigate participants' mental representations of God and karma, among culturally diverse samples from the USA and India, including Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and non-religious participants.Key results sho…
A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being
The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-…
Do reminders of God increase willingness to take risks
Victim blaming and belief in karma
Witnessing the suffering of innocent victims can motivate observers to interpret the situation in ways that justify that suffering, such as viewing victims as more personally responsible or possessing negative traits. In a pre‐registered cross‐cultural experiment ( N = 831 from India, Singapore and the USA), we tested whether belief in karma—a supernatural force that can be used to explain current misfortune as payback for past misdeeds—affects p…
Children's moral evaluations of and behaviors toward people who are curious about religion and science
Although children exhibit curiosity regarding science, questions remain regarding how children evaluate others' curiosity and whether evaluations differ across domains that prioritize faith (e.g., religion) versus those that value questioning (e.g., science). In Study 1 (n = 115 5- to 8-year-olds; 49% female; 66% White), children evaluated actors who were curious, ignorant and non-curious, or knowledgeable about religion or science; curiosity eli…
Adults Show Positive Moral Evaluations of Curiosity About Religion
Four experiments investigated the perceived virtue of curiosity about religion. Adults from the United States made moral judgments regarding targets who exhibited curiosity, possessed relevant knowledge, or lacked both curiosity and knowledge about religion and comparison topics (e.g., science). Participants attributed greater moral goodness to targets who displayed curiosity compared with targets who were ignorant or knowledgeable about the doma…
Cultural variation in the motivational correlates of gratitude
Gratitude confers a sense of indebtedness to repay the benefactor, which poses a limitation on one's autonomy-an aversive experience in individualist cultures. Yet, gratitude is frequently valued and expressed in individualist cultures such as the United States. One solution to this dilemma is that gratitude has different aspects: It confers a sense of obligation but also strengthens social relations. Thus, gratitude might be associated more stro…
Varieties of gratitude: Identifying patterns of emotional responses to positive experiences attributed to God, karma, and human benefactors
Good fortune can be attributed to many sources, including other people, personal efforts, and various theistic and nontheistic supernatural forces (e.g., God, karma). Four studies (total N = 4,579) of religiously diverse samples from the United States and the United Kingdom investigated the distinct emotional reactions to recalled positive experiences attributed to natural and supernatural benefactors. We found that the hallmarks of interpersonal…
Who Is Your Biggest Critic? Cultural Variation in Moral Judgments of the Self and Others
People are motivated to punish others who commit immoral actions when they believe the person willingly committed such an act. Compared with European American individuals, East Asian individuals are more punitive of wrongdoings, yet are less likely to attribute actions to the person. Here, we drew on research in cultural psychology to test the prediction that Chinese individuals are more punitive in part because they are more self-critical than E…
Karma rewards me and punishes you: Self–other divergences in karma beliefs
The roles of anthropomorphism, spirituality, and gratitude in pro-environmental attitudes
God, are You There? Coping and Emotion Regulation Among Religious, Never Religious, and Formerly Religious People Experiencing a Spiritual Crisis
Offloading punishment to karma: Thinking about karma reduces the punishment of transgressors
Punishment and the threat thereof can help enforce social norms, but enacting punishment is often costly. To avoid these costs, individuals may prefer to offload the responsibility of punishment to others or to cultural institutions. We propose that shared beliefs about supernatural punishment contribute to minimizing the costs of interpersonal punishment by allowing people to offload punishment to supernatural entities. In a Third Party Punishme…
Third-party punishment, vigilante justice, or karma? Understanding the dynamics of interpersonal and cosmic justice
How Karma Harms and Helps Generosity Toward Those in Need
Three preregistered cross-cultural studies ( N = 6,049 across India, Singapore, and the United States) tested how belief in karma shapes victim blaming and helping. Study 1 found that belief in karmic causality positively predicts a variety of system-justifying beliefs that legitimate social inequalities, but experimental reminders of karma also encouraged generosity toward others experiencing financial hardship. Studies 2 and 3 tested whether ka…
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…
Psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (10 works) · Karma (9 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (8 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (7 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Theology (7 works)