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Religion and Morality (Why would religion promote morality? (Proximate…
Religion and Morality
Why would religion promote morality?
Proximate Explanation: Supernatural Watcher account
Fear of consequences of behaving immorally when action are observed by a supernatural agent
Religious cues (services, stories, experimental primes) activate the notion that one's behaviours observed by supernatural agent
Cued Ps follow and enforce social norms to avoid angering this agent
Surveillance effects
People often behave differently when they know they are being watched
Risko & Kingstone (2011)
Ps sat alone in testing room with swimsuit calendar on wall
Compared what Ps looked at when they knew their eyes were being watched and when not
Results: no eye tracker 92% looked at stimulus, eye tracker 36%
Knowing that you're being observed leads to calibrated behaviour
Even subtle cues that you're being watched can affect attitudes/behaviour
Haley and Fessler (2005)
: stylised eyespots and DG donations
80% of Ps in eyespots conditions transferred money, cf. just over 50% in conditions without
Bateson et al. (2006)
: contributions to tea-room honesty box - eyes = more donations than flowers
Such cues may match input conditions for evolved mental mechanisms that detect when one's behaviour is observed
Religious cues might likewise function as input for these mechanisms
(Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007)
Ultimate Explanations: byproduct/adaptivist/integrated
Punitive Gods: Ultimate explanation
Supernatural watcher account = proximate explanation for the effect of religious cues on behaviour
Ultimate explanation = IMPORTANT
Integrated perspective = possible
Byproduct: supernatural agent concepts /narratives emerge as byproducts of mundane cognitive processes (HADDs)
Adaptive: ideologies enable larger groups of adherents to survive/prosper, they may directly ensure own survival
Religion as byproduct/"Spandrel"
Some theorist argue that religion and its effects are byproducts of cognitive mechanisms that evolved for other purposes
Spandrel
Architecture: a tapering triangular space formed by the intersection of two rounded arched at right angles
Necessary architectural byproducts of mounting a dome to round arches
Evolutionary biology: a biological feature of an organism not directly selected for, arises as a byproduct of other features
Understanding/transmission of god may be adaption, but religious beliefs may be byproduct
Example: Hyperactive Agency detection
Guthrie (1993)
: falsely inferring absence of agency more costly than falsely inferring presence
Barrett (2000)
: we are equipped with HAD devices
Byproduct of such mechanisms may be a tendency to infer supernatural agency
May be psychologically primed to assume there is agency behind everything else
Religion as Adaption
Formidable costs of religious belief/practice therefore must provide countervailing adaptive benefits
Better off collectively if cooperate, but individually if free-ride on cooperation
Religion as adaption for solving free-rider problem, enabling cooperation among large groups
Those who believe moral norms are poised by an all-knowing supernatural agent will have strong incentive to comply
Biological/Cultural Evo
Minds are "fertile ground" for certain ideas
Religions may exploit natural proclivity to acquire and transmit supernatural agent concepts
Perpetuate directly and indirectly but sometimes ideas (and groups) succeed at expense of others
Dark side of Prosociality
Ginges et al. (2007)
: Attendance at religious services positively predicted support for suicide attacks (in different religions)
Blogowska et al. (2013)
Religiosity predicted helping of an in-group member (volunteering time to take part in study)
Also overt and direct aggression by allocating hot sauce to a gay target (but not neutral target)
Labouff et al. (2012)
Ps passing a Christian landmark expressed more negative attitudes toward Christian outgroups than those passing civic landmark
Religion and Morality: Complex picture
Promote various "nice behaviours" - sharing, caring, volunteering, helping
Can also promote not-so-nice behaviours, like hostility towards outgrips and punishment of norm violators
Does religion promote morality?
Perceptions
Public Rhetoric
Dangerous to entertain idea of good society without religion
If no god nothing to curb immoral impulses
Are atheists moral?
Religion is potentially immoral?
Self-report studies
Must believe in God to be moral?
Potential limitations
Morality is not simple therefore confusing
Social desirability
Implicit evidence
Conjunction fallacy
Intuitions that religious people are more moral
Atheist distrust
Gervais (2014)
people have strong implicit associations of atheists with immorality
Atheists intuitively view acts such as serial murder, incest and necrobestiality as more representative of atheists than of other religious, ethnic, or cultural groups
Still make conjunction fallacy when atheist group (even towards other atheists)
Consequences
Wouldn't be president - low score even if otherwise qualified
Moral prejudice against atheists may have important implications in the judicial system - oath vs affirmation (choice makes belief known)
Evidence
Historical data
Were the Nazis atheists?
National Socialism = atheistic regime
However 'god on our side'
Taught scorn for the church - teaching and priests
Christ = Jew (Jewish swine)
Self-report studies
Survey evidence: people who pray and attend religious services report more prosocial behaviour
E.g. More charitable giving
However valid?
Partly reflect interpersonal deception on self-deception
More motivated to maintain moral reputation
Socially desirable response
Behavioural studies
Found limited associations between religiosity and prosociality
Participation in religious rituals promotes prosocial behaviour?
Ahmed (2009)
Ps = 102 indian men, 42 religion/theology students, 60 social science students
Experimental economic games
Public Good Game (Prisoner's Dilemma)
Two suspects arrested by police
SS = both 6 months
SD = defect goes free, silent serves 10 years
DD = both 5 years
Choice - betray/silent (others choice is not known)
Dilemma: whatever other does, defecting is better. But outcome when both defect = worse than if both cooperated
Dictator Game
Two players
Dictator - distributed endowment
Receiver - passive, receive what dictator gives
Results
Religious = more cooperative in PGG + more generous in dictator game than non-religious
Non-religious = more likely to donate nothing (48% cf. 24% of religious students)
Malhotra (2010)
- Religious = more likely to respond to charity appeals on days they visit place of worship (not other days)
Porn in USA
Edelman (2009)
compared internet porn consumption across US states
States with most porn = more conservative and religious than lower
Regular churchgoers abstained more on sundays
Norenzayan & Shariff (2008)
- limited by correlational design (not causation), causal inference require independent variables - manipulated not measured
Priming studies
Employing priming paradigms = consistent with proposal that religion promotes prosociality
Shariff & Norenzayan (2007)
'Primed' with religion donate more money in dictator game than control participants?
Experiments: even in anon, one-shot games, dictators often allocate non-zero share of endowment
Many dictators show preference for fairness, offering exactly half go the available money
Supraliminal Priming procedure
Scrambled sentence task to prime religious concepts before DG
10 5-word sentences, half religious target words
Results
Higher proportion of Ps behaved fairly in this religious-prime condition than in a control condition
More generous in god prime condition
Criticism of Priming Method
Randolph-Seng & Nielsen (2008)
have critiqued S&N method
Religious meaning of primes = not always hidden
To say subliminal prime = not conscious, care must be taken in hiding true meaning
Other studies
Cheat less
Display greater intention to help others
Are more cooperative in public goods games and prisoner;s dilemma games