People are more likely to associate the performance of good deeds with a religious person, and specifically a belief in God, according to researchers from the University of California, Merced.
Previous studies, dating back over a decade, had shown a bias linking atheists with less prosocial behavior and more immoral behavior, something also confirmed in the recent research. However, the scientists behind the latest study say the link they found between the performance of good deeds and a perceived belief in God was significantly higher.
“Though we also found that people intuitively link atheism with immoral behavior, people appear to associate believing in God with being generous, helpful, and caring to a much greater extent,” explained Colin Holbrook, a professor in the university’s Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences and a co-author on the paper detailing the findings.
Although statistically significant and with results displayed on a global scale, the researchers caution that their study only found a link between perceptions that those who believe in God are more likely to commit good deeds. Whether or not they are actually more likely to do so is still an open question.
Looking for a Link between the Belief in God and Behavior
The research was conducted in two distant countries with “disparate” levels of religious beliefs, the United States and New Zealand. Specifically, a recent Gallup poll found that approximately 47% of people in the U.S. described themselves as religious, whereas a 2018 census indicated that 49% of responding New Zealanders indicated no religious beliefs. According to the researchers, this meant that the U.S. population tended to be more religious, whereas the New Zealand population was considered to be more secular
Also, contrary to previous studies on the perceived link between a belief in God and prosocial moral behavior, where respondents were asked whether a serial killer was more likely to be religious or an atheist (with people all over the world thinking the latter was more likely to be true), the team conducting this latest study said they tried to “flip the switch to the bright side” to see if the inverse perception also existed.
“What if someone was a “serial helper,” prone to extraordinary benevolence?” the team asked.
Study Participants Link Religious Beliefs to Performing Good Deeds
To test the hypothesis and after sorting out unusable volunteers, the UC Merced researchers enlisted 744 US residents and 358 New Zealand residents. First, each group was asked the same serial killer question from the previous study. As expected, the researchers team observed that the associations found in that study remained, with most respondents believing the serial killer was not religious.
Next, each group of respondents was presented with a similar description of a man who “took a path of increasing benevolence” over the course of his life. This prosocial behavior included the fictional character helping animals as children, feeding the hungry as an adult, and sometimes even temporarily housing homeless families during the winter.
After reading the character’s description, half of the survey participants were asked which was more probable: the man is a teacher, or the man is a teacher and does not believe in God. To look for an inverse association, the other half of the respondents were asked which was more probable: the man is a teacher, or the man is a teacher and does not believe in God.
According to the release, “the results were striking.” After eliminating “invalid responses,” the team found that U.S. respondents were 20 times more likely to believe the man described was religious. Among New Zealand respondents, the perceived feeling that the man was religious was 12 times more likely. In effect, the study showed that people from two distant nations overwhelmingly associated the character’s performance of good deeds with a belief in God.
“In sum, we found evidence that religionists are conceptualized as morally good to a greater extent than are atheists conceptualized as morally bad, with comparable patterns observed in a predominantly religious society, the United States, and in a predominantly secular society, New Zealand,” they write.
Link Consistent Across Diverse Beliefs and Backgrounds
As previously noted, the researchers say the connection between religious beliefs and good deeds was much higher than the link between atheism and immoral or antisocial behavior found in a previous study. The link was still there, they say, but much weaker than the perceived link between the performing of good deeds and religiosity. This led the researchers to conclude that religious belief was a much stronger overall factor in the perceived difference between religiosity and good or bad behavior.
“So instead of a stereotype of atheists as immoral driving the effect, the stereotype of the moral person of faith may be the more important force,” Holbrook said in a statement. “We replicated the findings of the earlier studies linking evil with atheism, but we found that the effects linking prosociality with faith were remarkably larger.”
Additionally, the team found that the respondent’s own religious beliefs appeared to affect their responses.
“Religious individuals were far more likely to associate prosociality with the prospect that the target character also believed in God,” they write, “a result which is consistent with the premise that religion enhances trust and cooperation among co-religionists.”
Finally, the researchers found that the results were more or less consistent in both countries, even when correcting for differences in the respondents’ personal backgrounds.
“These results also held when including political orientation and spiritual connection to God as predictors, and also when omitting all demographic variables,” they write.
More Research Needed to Determine if Belief in God Behavior Link is Accurate
In the study’s conclusion, the researchers caution that their work only found a link in the external perception between a belief in God and good deeds and that the actual behavior of religious individuals was not studied. They note that this link could be a relic from earlier ages when religiosity heavily favored prosocial behavior, or it may simply still be true.
“This theoretical model suggests that the stereotype might actually have had merit in the past as major religions grew or may possibly be true even now — people who believe in God might actually be more likely to help others,” Holbrook said. To determine if the perception is accurate, the team says that more study is likely required.
“The evidence that believers are more prosocial is currently mixed, and it’s a question that calls for more research,” Holbrook said.
The study “Intuitive moral bias favors the religiously faithful” by Alex Dayer, Chanuwas Aswamenakul, Matthew A. Turner, Scott Nicolay, Emily Wang, Katherine Shurik & Colin Holbrook was published on August 7th in the journal Scientific Reports.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.