RT Article
T1 The divergent effects of prayer on cheating
JF Religion, brain & behavior
VO 10
IS 4
SP 365
OP 378
A1 Alogna, Victoria K.
A1 Halberstadt, Jamin
LA English
PB Routledge
YR 2020
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1741023092
AB Some research suggests that reminders of religious beliefs and concepts can decrease immoral behavior, such as cheating, via fear of supernatural punishment among other mechanisms. However, one of the most common natural religious primes, petitionary prayer, could in theory have the opposite effect, as it implies and asserts external attributions for behavior. We tested whether petitionary prayer, despite its association with religiosity, might nevertheless increase cheating and whether such effects would differ as a function of participants’ religious beliefs. American participants (N = 251) completed an online “Swahili translation” task that afforded cheating; half were asked to compose a prayer to improve their performance. Results showed that religiosity (measured as supernatural beliefs) was associated with a greater probability of cheating, as well as more extensive cheating among those that did cheat; prayer decreased the likelihood of cheating (but not its extent) among religious people only. Mediational analyses suggested that, counterintuitively, it was believers’ beliefs about God’s control, rather than about God’s capacity for punishment, that explained the effects.
K1 Prayer
K1 Cheating
K1 divine attributions
K1 supernatural monitoring and punishment
DO 10.1080/2153599X.2019.1574881