Religious motivations for cooperation
An experimental investigation using explicit primes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16909548 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David G Rand (0000-0002-2821-468X), David Rand (0000-0001-8975-2783, Harvard University, corresponding author), Anna Dreber (0000-0003-3989-9941, Stockholm School of Economics), Omar S Haque (0000-0001-9676-0263), Rob J Kane (Harvard University), Martin A Nowak (0000-0001-5489-0908, Evolutionary Genomics (United States)), Sarah Coakley (0000-0001-9613-3622, University of Cambridge) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 31-48 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religion Brain & Behavior (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2153-5981 • E-ISSN: 2153-599X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/2153599x.2013.775664 |
| OpenAlex | W2159263413 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 74 |
The role of religion in human cooperation remains a highly contested topic. Recent studies using economic game experiments to explore this issue have been largely inconclusive, yielding a range of conflicting results. In this study, we investigate the ability of religion to promote cooperation by using explicit theological primes. In the first study, conducted in a church, we find that subjects who report a stronger connection with a Christian passage about charitable giving are subsequently more likely to cooperate in a one-shot prisoner's dilemma game. In the second study, conducted over the Internet, we find that Christian subjects are more likely to cooperate after reading a Christian passage than a neutral one. However, in the same study, we find that Hindu and secular passages have no significant effect on Christians, and that none of the passages (Christian, Hindu, or secular) have an effect on non-Christians. Our results show the potential power of explicitly religious exhortations that promote cooperation, and also their selectivity
Dilemma · Epistemology · Hinduism · Political science · Sociology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Social Psychology
The longitudinal associations of material security and belief in God in young Americans
Supernatural and secular monitors promote human cooperation only if they remind of punishment
Religious Priming
Psychology as a Historical Science
The Ambivalent Role of Religion for Sustainable Development
A family member's death increases religious activity
Moral Salience, Situational Moral Evaluations, and Criminal Choice
On the varieties of sexual experience
Are Atheists Implicit Theists
The Effects of Religious Messages and Endorsements on Political Attitudes
Religious attitudes and prosocial behavior
Buddhism, identity, and class
Supernatural norm enforcement
Without God, everything is permitted? The reciprocal influence of religious and meta-ethical beliefs
Buddhists Care
Religiosity and Cooperation
Evolution of parochial altruism by multilevel selection
Advances in Group Processes
The Calculus of Selfishness
Governing the Commons
Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation
Spontaneous giving and calculated greed
Religion's evolutionary landscape
Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of the commons’
Evolution of indirect reciprocity
Positive Interactions Promote Public Cooperation
Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief
The online laboratory
The sound of silence in prisoner's dilemma and dictator games
Economic Games on the Internet
Divine intuition
The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality
Analyzing the Amazon Mechanical Turk marketplace
The promise of Mechanical Turk
A perspective on judgment and choice
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Implicit social cognition
Governing the Commons
The Scrambled Sentence Test
God Is Watching You
Darwin's Cathedral
Religious Identity and Economic Behavior
Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred
"O Lord… You Perceive my Thoughts from Afar"
Effects of religious setting on cooperative behavior
The effects of stereotype activation on behavior
Religious Solidarity
Speak, Lord, Your Servant Is Listening”
Research
Social roles and the moral judgement of acts and omissions
Social categorization and intergroup behaviour
Beyond the Self
Leading us not into temptation
Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition
God's punishment and public goods
The empirical case for two systems of reasoning
In-group bias in the minimal intergroup situation
Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making
Do Unto Others
Religious Ritual and Cooperation
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,45 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 14 |