Location, Location, Location: Effects of Cross-Religious Primes on Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

Priming with religious concepts is known to have a positive effect on prosocial behavior; however, the effects of religious primes associated with outgroups remain unknown. To explore this, we conducted a field experiment in a multicultural, multireligious setting (the island of Mauritius). Our design used naturally occurring, ecologically relevant contextual primes pertinent to everyday religious and secular life while maintaining full experimental control. We found that both ingroup and outgroup religious contexts increased generosity as measured by a donation task. In accordance with previous research, we also found an interaction between individual religiosity and the efficacy of the religious primes. We discuss these findings and their interpretation, and we suggest potential avenues for further research.

Music As a Sacred Cue? Effects of Religious Music on Moral Behavior

“…Religiosity is entrenched into Mauritian everyday life much more than in the other two sites, and might play a more important normative role (Xygalatas, 2013 ). This was confirmed by the significant differences in reported religiosity and frequency of ritual participation between Mauritius and the other two sites, and might indicate that higher religiosity could be associated with heightened sensitivity to religious cues (for similar results on prosocial behavior see Xygalatas et al, 2015 ). This interpretation is further supported by the significant Condition * Religiosity interaction.…”

“…The fact that religiosity had a significant impact on dishonest behavior only in the religious condition supports the important role of religious situational factors in decision-making. We propose that dispositional religiosity does not affect participants' honesty to a large extent, unless it is activated by environmental sacred cues (Darley and Batson, 1973 ; Norenzayan and Shariff, 2008 ; Xygalatas, 2013 ; Xygalatas et al, 2015 ). While Mauritian participants reported significantly higher religiosity than participants at the other sites, the Mauritian cheating rates were significantly higher than those in the Czech Republic and the USA.…”

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution

“…For example, when we wanted to study the effects of environmental cues on behavior, instead of using a highly controlled but artificial laboratory environment, we went out to the real world and used temples, restaurants, and libraries, and either randomly assigned participants to different locations or made minor interventions to the environment itself (Krátký et al, 2016;Xygalatas et al, 2016). Thus, by embracing the complexity of the real world while giving up only limited control, these designs too offered cumulative benefits that neither ethnographic observation nor laboratory experiments alone could offer.…”

Neuropeptide Y and religious commitment in healthy young women

“…This research has shown that religion and spirituality promote health and well-being (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8), and that religion can be an important source of protection and resilience, helping individuals to cope with stressors (1,3,7,(9)(10)(11)(12). Religious cues may facilitate prosociality (13), cooperation (14) and in-group assistance (15), but at the same time promote out-group competition and hostility (16)(17)(18)(19). Religion promotes resilience to stress by modulating personal traits, by providing meaning to traumatic life events, and by mediating emotional responses (4,5).…”