Implicit influences of Christian religious representations on dictator and prisoner's dilemma game decisions

• We investigate how implicit influences of Christian religious representations affect prosociality. We examine the direct impact of religion as an independent variable on prosocial behavior. We do so by priming participants with religious words in a scrambled sentence task before they make a dictator game and a prisoner's dilemma game decision. Priming religious words significantly increased prosocial behavior in both games: participants in the treatment group were more generous and cooperative than participants in the control group. The priming effect was present regardless of participants' self-reported religiosity. Self-reported religiosity was not correlated with generosity or cooperation. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Dictator game

Priming

Prisoner's dilemma game

Religion

Economics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)