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.

Notes

¹ In Mauritius there is a strong overlap between religion and ethnicity. Our local assistants were thus able to recruit subjects based on their physical features and dress code, as the large majority of Afro-Mauritians are Christian. Our questionnaires subsequently provided confirmation that each recruited subject was indeed Christian.

² The sum is more than 100% because some participants gave more than one answer.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University; the Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, cofinanced by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic (LEVYNA, CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0048); the Innovative Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives in the Study of Religion grant MUNI/A/1148/2014; the Technologies of the Mind project at the Interactive Minds Centre at Aarhus University, financed by the Velux Foundation; and the Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium, financed by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. We are grateful to Lloyd Black, Jordan Kiper, Martin Lang, Hudson Rollinson, John Shaver, and Richard Sosis for providing valuable comments on this manuscript.