Highly Religious People are Less Motivated by Compassion than are Non-Believers
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[url]http://www.sciguru.com/newsitem/13791/highly-religious-people-are-less-motivated-compassion-are-non-believers[/url]
[quote] Study finds highly religious people are less motivated by compassion to show generosity than are non-believers
In three experiments, social scientists found that compassion consistently drove less religious people to be more generous. For highly religious people, however, compassion was largely unrelated to how generous they were, according to the findings which are published in the most recent online issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
The results challenge a widespread assumption that acts of generosity and charity are largely driven by feelings of empathy and compassion, researchers said. In the study, the link between compassion and generosity was found to be stronger for those who identified as being non-religious or less religious.
“Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help that person or not,” said UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a co-author of the study. “The more religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns.”
Compassion is defined in the study as an emotion felt when people see the suffering of others which then motivates them to help, often at a personal risk or cost.
While the study examined the link between religion, compassion and generosity, it did not directly examine the reasons for why highly religious people are less compelled by compassion to help others. However, researchers hypothesize that deeply religious people may be more strongly guided by a sense of moral obligation than their more non-religious counterparts.
“We hypothesized that religion would change how compassion impacts generous behavior,” said study lead author Laura Saslow, who conducted the research as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley.
Saslow, who is now a postdoctoral scholar at UC San Francisco, said she was inspired to examine this question after an altruistic, nonreligious friend lamented that he had only donated to earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti after watching an emotionally stirring video of a woman being saved from the rubble, not because of a logical understanding that help was needed.
“I was interested to find that this experience – an atheist being strongly influenced by his emotions to show generosity to strangers – was replicated in three large, systematic studies,” Saslow said.
In the first experiment, researchers analyzed data from a 2004 national survey of more than 1,300 American adults. Those who agreed with such statements as “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them” were also more inclined to show generosity in random acts of kindness, such as loaning out belongings and offering a seat on a crowded bus or train, researchers found.
When they looked into how much compassion motivated participants to be charitable in such ways as giving money or food to a homeless person, non-believers and those who rated low in religiosity came out ahead: “These findings indicate that although compassion is associated with pro-sociality among both less religious and more religious individuals, this relationship is particularly robust for less religious individuals,” the study found.
In the second experiment, 101 American adults watched one of two brief videos, a neutral video or a heartrending one, which showed portraits of children afflicted by poverty. Next, they were each given 10 “lab dollars” and directed to give any amount of that money to a stranger. The least religious participants appeared to be motivated by the emotionally charged video to give more of their money to a stranger.
“The compassion-inducing video had a big effect on their generosity,” Willer said. “But it did not significantly change the generosity of more religious participants.”
In the final experiment, more than 200 college students were asked to report how compassionate they felt at that moment. They then played “economic trust games” in which they were given money to share – or not – with a stranger. In one round, they were told that another person playing the game had given a portion of their money to them, and that they were free to reward them by giving back some of the money, which had since doubled in amount.
Those who scored low on the religiosity scale, and high on momentary compassion, were more inclined to share their winnings with strangers than other participants in the study.
“Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people,” Willer said.
In addition to Saslow and Willer, other co-authors of the study are UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner, Matthew Feinberg and Paul Piff; Katharine Clark at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and Sarina Saturn at Oregon State University.
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[IMG]http://images.wikia.com/kingdomheartsfanfiction/images/3/3e/Frollo.jpg[/IMG]
[I]"You know I'm so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious, crowd."[/I]
Thread Title is really skewed. The article is essentially saying the opposite if what the title attempts to imply.
[QUOTE=Hidole555;35778476][IMG]http://images.wikia.com/kingdomheartsfanfiction/images/3/3e/Frollo.jpg[/IMG]
[I]"You know I'm so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious, crowd."[/I][/QUOTE]
I'm an athiest and Frollo is my idol.
He's angry, educated, powerful, and he can burn whatever he wants. Even orphans.
[QUOTE=GoldenGnome;35778533]Thread Title is really skewed. The article is essentially saying the opposite if what the title attempts to imply.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]“Overall, this research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people,” Willer said.[/QUOTE]
You were saying?
To me the title said more or less that religious people are inherently less compassionate but that has nothing to do with the article at large.
As much as I want to say "Fuck religion, I told you so", most of the "X group is smarter/kinder/better than Y group" studies end up being bullshit in one way or another.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;35778665]As much as I want to say "Fuck religion, I told you so", most of the "X group is smarter/kinder/better than Y group" studies end up being bullshit in one way or another.[/QUOTE]
Not to mention that the "Fuck religion" mentality makes one look just like those they claim to be better than.
This isn't that much of a surprise, not because of "hur dur fuck religion" but because some Christian denominations (especially in the past) taught that hard work and righteousness lead to economic prosperity, and allot of people truly believed the poor were poor because they were bad people or lazy.
This is in stark contrast to sociology which usually suggest that many "bad" people (ie criminals) are bad [I]because[/I] they are poor.
So we now believe poverty causes crime instead of crime causes poverty.
Bullshit study. You can't measure someone's compassion.
It says that compassion was largely unrelated to generosity, not that they're less compassionate.
[QUOTE=The Baconator;35778838]This isn't that much of a surprise, not because of "hur dur fuck religion" but because some Christian denominations (especially in the past) taught that hard work and righteousness lead to economic prosperity, and allot of people truly believed the poor were poor because they were bad people or lazy.
This is in stark contrast to sociology which usually suggest that many "bad" people (ie criminals) are bad [I]because[/I] they are poor.
So we now believe poverty causes crime instead of crime causes poverty.[/QUOTE]
That wasn't really invented to encourage people to be devout and hard-working, though. It was invented by obscenely rich people to justify the things they did by insisting that [I]they[/I] earned their money through hard work rather than exploiting others. Before that most western societies were aristocratic so very few people expected to become rich if they weren't already.
So, what I gathered from this: Religious people help others because they are obligated to do so. Non-religious people help others because it's the right thing to do.
That's sad if it's true. Religion or not, you should help others regardless.
[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;35778874]It says that compassion was largely unrelated to generosity, not that they're less compassionate.[/QUOTE]
But if they aren't generous, or helpful, why does it matter if they are just as compassionate as a non-believer? They aren't helping the situation, so the fact that they empathize with the person means nothing.
[QUOTE=Coridan;35781345]So, what I gathered from this: Religious people help others because they are obligated to do so. Non-religious people help others because it's the right thing to do.
That's sad if it's true. Religion or not, you should help others regardless.[/QUOTE]
There are also true believers that are highly compassionate. These types are also the ones that detest organized religion though from my experience. Good people none the less, if you can find them.
[QUOTE=Coridan;35781345]So, what I gathered from this: Religious people help others because they are obligated to do so. Non-religious people help others because it's the right thing to do.[/QUOTE]
Though that's not to say there aren't any religious people who help other people because they think it's the right thing to do, of course.
Besides, by extreme technicallity most good-natured acts are egotistically motivated anyway, due to the good feeling people normally get when helping others being reasonably addictive. Though that's less a bad thing and more of an obligatory side-effect, so that we can measure up helping others versus helping ourselves and not all die fighing over pieces of bread.
[QUOTE=Coridan;35781345]So, what I gathered from this: Religious people help others because they are obligated to do so. Non-religious people help others because it's the right thing to do.
That's sad if it's true. Religion or not, you should help others regardless.[/QUOTE]
I think what it is is that religious people dump the credit of compassion towards religion instead of taking it themselves.
"God told me to feed you food today, less fortunate, so thank the Lord, not me."
I don't think many feel their obligated to do so either, it's just that when the situation occurs, it tends to be bent in a religious manner.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;35779992]Correlation, causation, et cetera[/QUOTE]
I think people studying this seriously would take that into account.
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