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The Effect of Religious Priming in Pro-social and Destructive Behavior

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  • Jipeng Zhang
  • Elizabeth Brown
  • Huan Xie

Abstract

In this paper, we study the behavioural impact of religious priming by showing participants religious words in a scrambled sentence task before a dictator game and a joy-of-destruction game. We also elicited data on individual religiosity and religious affiliation using a questionnaire. Priming religious words significantly increased pro-social behaviour in the dictator game, and the effect was especially striking among those reporting no religion, atheists and agnostics. The religious prime has no significant effect in mitigating destructive behaviour or own expectations of the other's destruction choice, but both destructive behaviour and expectations correlate positively with the multi-dimensional religiosity measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Jipeng Zhang & Elizabeth Brown & Huan Xie, 2019. "The Effect of Religious Priming in Pro-social and Destructive Behavior," CIRANO Working Papers 2019s-06, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2019s-06
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    5. Joo Young Jeon & Shakun Mago, 2026. "The Dark Side of Human Decision-Making: A Review of Behavior in the Joy-of-Destruction Experiments," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2026-05, Department of Economics, University of Reading.

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    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

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