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Nonreligious Group Factors Versus Religious Belief in the Prediction of Prosociality

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  • Luke Galen
  • Michael Sharp
  • Alison McNulty

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that religious belief is associated with a range of prosocial behaviors such as social embeddedness and generosity. However, this literature has often conflated belief in God with group involvement and failed to control for demographic and social network effects. Rather than assessing prosociality by comparing religious group members with the unaffiliated, the present study also includes secular/nonreligious group members. Multiple regression analyses controlling for confounds diminishes many of the apparent differences between religious and nonreligious individuals. Belief in God itself accounts for approximately 1–2 % of the variance in social embeddedness domains and >1 % of the variance in the domains of outside-group charity and community volunteering. Belief in God is associated with homophily and parochial behavior such as within-group charitable donations and constrained contact with different others. These findings indicate that prosocial benefits are more related to general group membership equally available to religious and secular group members alike than they are to specifically religious content. Religious beliefs are related to within-group prosociality as well as homophily and parochialism directed to those outside the group. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Luke Galen & Michael Sharp & Alison McNulty, 2015. "Nonreligious Group Factors Versus Religious Belief in the Prediction of Prosociality," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 411-432, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:122:y:2015:i:2:p:411-432
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-014-0700-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tan, Jonathan H.W. & Vogel, Claudia, 2008. "Religion and trust: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 832-848, December.
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    6. Daniel Mochon & Michael Norton & Dan Ariely, 2011. "Who Benefits from Religion?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 101(1), pages 1-15, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lane, Tom, 2021. "The effects of Jesus and God on pro-sociality and discrimination," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Shibly Shahrier & Koji Kotani & Makoto Kakinaka, 2017. "Religiosity may not be a panacea: Importance of prosociality to maintain humanitarian donations," Working Papers SDES-2017-23, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Nov 2017.
    3. Tom Lane, 2019. "The differential effects of Jesus and God on distributive behaviour," Discussion Papers 2019-05, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.

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