IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v24y2012i4p463-482.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do religious cognitions promote prosociality?

Author

Listed:
  • Ashley Harrell

Abstract

Researchers have long argued that religion increases prosocial behavior, but results are equivocal. Recent findings on priming religious concepts seem to show that religion drives other-regarding behaviors. However, here I suggest that some religious concepts may not only be priming religion, but also anticipated rewards. I present the results of a new experiment that primes reward-related and reward-unrelated religious or secular concepts. Results show that priming reward-related concepts positively impacts prosocial behavior (specifically, generosity), regardless of their religious content. Religious cognitions alone are not sufficient to elicit generosity: reward cognitions must be present as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashley Harrell, 2012. "Do religious cognitions promote prosociality?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 24(4), pages 463-482, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:24:y:2012:i:4:p:463-482
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463112463930
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463112463930
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463112463930?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa Anderson & Jennifer Mellor & Jeffrey Milyo, 2010. "Did the Devil Make Them Do It? The Effects of Religion in Public Goods and Trust Games," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 163-175, May.
    2. Hung-Lin Tao & Powen Yeh, 2007. "Religion as an Investment: Comparing the Contributions and Volunteer Frequency among Christians, Buddhists, and Folk Religionists," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 73(3), pages 770-790, January.
    3. Warren B. Hrung, 2004. "After‐Life Consumption and Charitable Giving," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 731-745, July.
    4. Philip Grossman & Matthew Parrett, 2011. "Religion and prosocial behaviour: a field test," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 523-526.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Faisal Alshehri & Marianna Fotaki & Saleema Kauser, 2021. "The Effects of Spirituality and Religiosity on the Ethical Judgment in Organizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(3), pages 567-593, December.
    2. Miao, Shuchao & Chi, Jing & Liao, Jing & Qian, Long, 2021. "How does religious belief promote farmer entrepreneurship in rural China?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 95-104.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olof Johansson‐Stenman & Minhaj Mahmud & Peter Martinsson, 2009. "Trust and Religion: Experimental Evidence from Rural Bangladesh," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(303), pages 462-485, July.
    2. Dhami, Sanjit & Wei, Mengxing & Mamidi, Pavan, 2024. "Religious identity, trust, reciprocity, and prosociality: Theory and evidence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Which is greener: secularity or religiosity? Environmental philanthropy along religiosity spectrum," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 20(2), pages 477-502, April.
    4. Elgin, Ceyhun & Goksel, Turkmen & Gurdal, Mehmet Y. & Orman, Cuneyt, 2013. "Religion, income inequality, and the size of the government," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 225-234.
    5. S. Brock Blomberg & Thomas DeLeire & Gregory D. Hess, 2006. "The (After) Life-Cycle Theory of Religious Contributions," CESifo Working Paper Series 1854, CESifo.
    6. Diasakos, Theodoros M & Neymotin, Florence, 2013. "Coordination in Public Good Provision: How Individual Volunteering is Impacted by the Volunteering of Others," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-119, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    7. Berggren, Niclas & Bjørnskov, Christian, 2013. "Does religiosity promote property rights and the rule of law?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 161-185, June.
    8. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Tobol, Yossef, 2016. "Fundraising to a real-life public good – evidence from the laboratory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 27-37.
    9. Johansson-Stenman, Olof & Mahmud, Minhaj & Martinsson, Peter, 2013. "Trust, trust games and stated trust: Evidence from rural Bangladesh," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 286-298.
    10. Vicky Barham & Rose Anne Devlin & Rebekah Owusu, 2017. "Strategic Philanthropists: Who Are They and Do They Matter?," Working Papers 1717E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    11. Barış Yörük, 2012. "Do fundraisers select charitable donors based on gender and race? Evidence from survey data," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 219-243, January.
    12. Kumru, Cagri S. & Sarntisart, Saran, 2016. "Banking for those unwilling to bank: Implications of Islamic banking systems," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-12.
    13. Theodoros M. Diasakos & Florence Neymotin, 2011. "Community Matters: How the Volunteering of Others Affects One's Likelihood of Engaging in Volunteer Work," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 209, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    14. Fabio Padovano & Ronald Wintrobe, 2013. "The Dictatorship of the Popes," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 365-377, August.
    15. Gupta, Gautam & Mahmud, Minhaj & Maitra, Pushkar & Mitra, Santanu & Neelim, Ananta, 2018. "Religion, minority status, and trust: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 180-205.
    16. Shen, Na & Su, Jun, 2017. "Religion and succession intention - Evidence from Chinese family firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 150-161.
    17. Jonathan Oxley, 2020. "Examining Donor Preference for Charity Religious Affiliation," Working Papers wp2020_01_01, Department of Economics, Florida State University.
    18. repec:pri:cepsud:236rosen is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Feldhaus, Christoph & Gleue, Marvin & Löschel, Andreas, 2022. "Can a Catholic institution promote sustainable behavior? Field experimental evidence on donations for climate protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    20. Robert Hoffmann, 2013. "The Experimental Economics Of Religion," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 813-845, December.
    21. Benediktson, Mathias Nylandsted, 2018. "Investigating the U-Shaped Charitable Giving Profile Using Register-Based Data," DaCHE discussion papers 2018:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:24:y:2012:i:4:p:463-482. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.