Billingsley Joseph, Gomes Cristina M, McCullough Michael E
Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2018 Aug 22;5(8):170238. doi: 10.1098/rsos.170238. eCollection 2018 Aug.
Does religion promote prosocial behaviour? Despite numerous publications that seem to answer this question affirmatively, divergent results from recent meta-analyses and pre-registered replication efforts suggest that the issue is not yet settled. Uncertainty lingers around (i) whether the effects of religious cognition on prosocial behaviour were obtained through implicit cognitive processes, explicit cognitive processes or both and (ii) whether religious cognition increases generosity only among people disinclined to share with anonymous strangers. Here, we report two experiments designed to address these concerns. In Experiment 1, we sought to replicate Shariff and Norenzayan's demonstration of the effects of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers to anonymous strangers; unlike Shariff and Norenzayan, however, we used an online environment where anonymity was virtually assured. In Experiment 2, we introduced a 'taking' option to allow greater expression of baseline selfishness. In both experiments, we sought to activate religious cognition implicitly and explicitly, and we investigated the possibility that religious priming depends on the extent to which subjects view God as a punishing, authoritarian figure. Results indicated that in both experiments, religious subjects transferred more money on average than did non-religious subjects. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis that religious priming did not increase Dictator Game transfers in either experiment, even among religious subjects. Collectively, the two experiments furnished support for a small but reliable effect of priming, though among religious subjects only. Neither experiment supported the hypothesis that the effect of religious priming depends on viewing God as a punishing figure. Finally, in a meta-analysis of relevant studies, we found that the overall effect of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers was small and did not statistically differ from zero.
宗教能促进亲社会行为吗？尽管有大量出版物似乎肯定地回答了这个问题，但近期的荟萃分析和预先注册的重复研究得出的不同结果表明，这个问题尚未解决。围绕以下两个问题仍存在不确定性：（i）宗教认知对亲社会行为的影响是通过内隐认知过程、外显认知过程还是两者兼而有之获得的；（ii）宗教认知是否仅在那些不愿意与匿名陌生人分享的人群中增加慷慨程度。在此，我们报告两项旨在解决这些问题的实验。在实验1中，我们试图重复沙里夫和诺伦扎扬关于内隐宗教启动对独裁者博弈中给予匿名陌生人金钱行为影响的论证；然而，与沙里夫和诺伦扎扬不同的是，我们使用了一个几乎能确保匿名的在线环境。在实验2中，我们引入了一个“拿走”选项，以允许更充分地表达基线自私程度。在这两项实验中，我们试图以内隐和外显的方式激活宗教认知，并研究宗教启动效应是否取决于受试者将上帝视为惩罚性、独裁性人物的程度。结果表明，在两项实验中，宗教受试者平均转移的金钱都比非宗教受试者更多。贝叶斯分析支持了零假设，即在两项实验中，宗教启动都没有增加独裁者博弈中的金钱转移，即使在宗教受试者中也是如此。总体而言，这两项实验为启动效应提供了虽小但可靠的支持，不过仅在宗教受试者中。两项实验均未支持宗教启动效应取决于将上帝视为惩罚性人物这一假设。最后，在对相关研究的荟萃分析中，我们发现内隐宗教启动对独裁者博弈中金钱转移的总体效应很小，且在统计学上与零无差异。
