IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/jemarx/v01y2020i01ns2737436x20500028.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Religious Contexts Elicit More Trust and Altruism? Decision-Making Scenario Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Bradley J. Ruffle

    (Department of Economics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4, Canada)

  • Richard Sosis

    (Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-2176, USA)

Abstract

We design a decision-making scenario experiment on Facebook to measure subjects’ altruism and trust towards attendees of religious service, a fitness class and a local music performance. Secular and religious subjects alike display significantly more altruism and trust towards the synagogue attendees than attendees of the other two non-religious venues. We also find that secular subjects are just as altruistic towards synagogue and prayer group attendees as religious subjects are. These findings support recent theories that emphasize the pivotal role of religious context in arousing high levels of prosociality.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradley J. Ruffle & Richard Sosis, 2020. "Do Religious Contexts Elicit More Trust and Altruism? Decision-Making Scenario Experiments," Journal of Economics, Management and Religion (JEMAR), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(01), pages 1-25, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:jemarx:v:01:y:2020:i:01:n:s2737436x20500028
    DOI: 10.1142/S2737436X20500028
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2737436X20500028
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2737436X20500028?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    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:wsi:jemarx:v:01:y:2020:i:01:n:s2737436x20500028. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/jemar .

    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.