Nonreligious Group Factors Versus Religious Belief in the Prediction of Prosociality

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.

The cultural evolution of prosocial religions

“…However, it is unclear whether this represents extended prosociality because of the uncontrolled status of the recipient (i.e., often the religious group itself; Galen 2012). Religious belief is less predictive of charity or volunteering outside the group (Galen et al 2015;McKitrick et al 2013).…”

Conversations and Controversies in the Scientific Study of Religion

“…Evidence that merely supports the former is often conflated with the latter (i.e., parochial altruism is misinterpreted as general prosociality). For example, members of religious groups contribute more to their own group than do secular group members, however religious belief does not predict charity or volunteering outside the group (Galen, Sharp & McNulty 2015). In economic studies, when participant and partner religiosity are fully controlled, religious individuals' greater trust is contingent upon shared identity , again indicating parochial altruism.…”

Understanding the Effects of Colleague Participation and Public Cause Proximity on Employee Volunteering Intentions: The Moderating Role of Power Distance

“…Researches on individual-level antecedents have documented the demographic, personality trait, motivational, and other psychological factors related to volunteering (Rodell et al, 2016;Ainsworth, 2020). Several studies have found that demographic factors such as gender, age (Cornwell and Warburton, 2014), family structure (Bandy and Ottoniwilhelm, 2012), education (Marshall and Taniguchi, 2012), and religious beliefs (Galen et al, 2015) impact employee involvement in social causes. Certain personality traits have also attracted considerable attention.…”