Christian religious badges instill trust in Christian and non-Christian perceivers.

McCullough, Michael E.; Swartwout, Paul; Shaver, John H.; Carter, Evan C.; Sosis, Richard

doi:10.1037/rel0000045

Cited by 41 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The results reported here extend experimental work showing that religious individuals are often perceived as more trustworthy (Hall et al, 2015;McCullough et al, 2015;Purzycki and Arakchaa, 2013;Ru✏e and Sosis, 2010;Tan and Vogel, 2008;Widman et al, 2009). Here, I have drawn on quantitative ethnographic evidence to show that reputational evaluations of one's peers are shaped, in part, by the religious practice they undertake.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Discerning devotion: Testing the signaling theory of religion

Power

2017

Evolution and Human Behavior

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Religious rituals often entail significant investments of time, energy, and money, and can risk bodily harm. Instead of being evolutionarily inexplicable, such costly religious acts have been argued to be honest signals of commitment to the beliefs and values of the community, helping individuals establish good reputations and foster trusting, cooperative relationships. Most tests of this hypothesis have evaluated whether religious signalers are more prosocial; here I investigate whether signal receivers actually perceive religious signalers as such. I do this with data collected over 20 months of ethnographic fieldwork in two villages in South India, where Hindu and Christian residents engage in di↵erent modes of religious practice, including dramatic acts of firewalking and spirit possession as well as the more subtle but consistent act of worshipping at a church or temple each week. Each mode of religious practice is found to be informative of a distinct set of reputational qualities. Broadly speaking, in the long term, individuals who invest more in the religious life of the village are not only seen as more devout, but also as having a suite of prosocial, other-focused traits. In the short term, individuals who perform greater and costlier acts in the annual Hindu festival show a slight increase in the percent of villagers recognizing them as physically strong and hardworking. These results suggest that people are attending to the full suite of religious acts carried out by their peers, using these signals to discern multiple aspects of their character and intentions.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Discerning devotion: Testing the signaling theory of religion

Power

2017

Evolution and Human Behavior

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“…This finding is interesting given different affective responses among religious groups (Gallup, ; Pew Research Center, ) as well as prior research showing that religious cue usage in marketing communications generally increases product evaluations (Dotson & Hyatt, ; Minton, ; Taylor et al, ). These findings are particularly interesting in that they also contradict a large body of prior research showing a positive halo effect of religion on evaluations of people (c.f., Bailey & Vietor, ; Bailey & Young, ; Isaac, Bailey, & Isaac, ) as well as greater trust of religious people (c.f., Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan, ; McCullough, Swartwout, Shaver, Carter, & Sosis, ; Moon, Krems, & Cohen, ). Put simply, results from the studies herein suggest that religious cues do not have the same effect for products as they do for people.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When open‐mindedness lowers product evaluations: Influencers to consumers’ response to religious cues in advertising

Minton

2019

Psychology and Marketing

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Prior research has examined response to Christian religious cues used in secular marketing messages but has inadequately explored the underlying reasons for such response as well as why religious cues may negatively influence product evaluations. These limitations are addressed in this research work through three studies utilizing religious cues. In Studies 1a and 1b, ads with a Christian or Muslim religious cue (no religious cue) were found to produce lower (higher) product evaluations. Studies 2-3 then examined why religious cues in ads can produce lower product evaluations to show that open-mindedness moderated this effect (Study 2), and priming openmindedness also influenced this effect (Study 3). Most interestingly, open-minded consumers were more negative toward religious cues in marketing communications than close-minded consumers, and priming open-mindedness magnified this effect. These novel effects are discussed in relation to the literature on open-mindedness and value-based consumption. Additionally, implications for research and practice are discussed.

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“…We sought to measure trait trustworthiness with McCullough, Swartwout, Shaver, Carter, and Sosis's () modified version of Evans and Revelle's () propensity to trust scale, which retained the seven items that McCullough et al found to have the highest item‐total score correlations. Responses were measured on a 5‐point rating scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of A Broad Trait?

et al. 2019

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The Dictator Game, a face valid measure of altruism, and the Trust Game, a face valid measure of trust and trustworthiness, are among the most widely used behavioural measures in human cooperation research. Researchers have observed considerable covariation among these and other economic games, leading them to assert that there exists a general human propensity to cooperate that varies in strength across individuals and manifests itself across a variety of social settings. To formalize this hypothesis, we created an S-1 bifactor model using 276 participants' Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions. The general factor had significant, moderate associations with self-reported and peer-reported altruism, trust, and trustworthiness. Thus, the positive covariation among economic games is not reducible to the games' shared situational features. Two hundred participants returned for a second session. The general factor based on Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions from this session did not significantly predict self-reported and peer-reported cooperation, suggesting that experience with economic games causes them to measure different traits from those that are reflected in self-assessments and peer-assessments of cooperativeness.

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Christian religious badges instill trust in Christian and non-Christian perceivers.

Cited by 41 publications

References 51 publications

Discerning devotion: Testing the signaling theory of religion

Discerning devotion: Testing the signaling theory of religion

When open‐mindedness lowers product evaluations: Influencers to consumers’ response to religious cues in advertising

Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of A Broad Trait?

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