More religious = less compassionate

[bookitty]

Color me unsurprised. Especially after this last bout of highly religious Republican candidates.


Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers (http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/)

...new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that the highly religious are less motivated by compassion when helping a stranger than are atheists, agnostics and less religious people.

“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.”

[AvalonXQ]

The headline's a little deceptive.

What those studies report is that nonreligious people are only generous/helpful to strangers when they feel emotionally compelled to be, while religious people are just as generous/helpful whether or not they feel emotionally compelled to be.

The studies didn't report on how compassionate or how generous the groups were -- just that the nonreligious were more affected by compassion when deciding what to do.

To make up an example to show what this means (and what it doesn't mean): a religious person giving a thousand dollars to charity every month, even when he doesn't feel like it, would be measured as "less compassionate" than a nonreligious person who gave zero dollars most months but gave ten dollars one month when a commercial made him cry.

To put it another way, the studies would be consistent with religious people being less receptive to purely emotional appeals for help, but would also be consistent with religious people being just as receptive to emotional appeals but also receptive to unemotional appeals (that is, just plain being more generous in general).

[Puppycow]

“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,”

IOW, less religious people are unlikely to help a stranger.

“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.”

IOW, more religious people would be more likely to help a stranger.

[devnull]

"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"

I thought the wording was a little squiffy when I glanced at it before there were any replies.........

[Puppycow]

"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"

I thought the wording was a little squiffy when I glanced at it before there were any replies.........

And conversely:
However, researchers hypothesize that deeply religious people may be more strongly guided by a sense of moral obligation than their more non-religious counterparts.

Basically, the less religious rely on empathy, while the more religious rely on "a sense of moral obligation".

Unfortunately, the original study is behind a pay-wall. I would prefer to read the original study to a reporter's spin on it.

[Puppycow]

“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.

Key words emphasized.

[angrysoba]

I am somehow catching the whiff of bovine odure...

Anyone else smell that?

[SezMe]

How do I get this stuff off my shoes?

[NeilC]

Why are you dismissing this as ****?

Edited for Rule 10.

It doesn't seem completely unlikely that when non-religious people help others it's because they feel compassion but highly religious people, then they help others, tend to do it because of their doctrine.

[blobru]

Well, one thing's for sure: it's not the clearest article I've ever read. However, from its descriptions of the experiments, the only claim I see the researchers making is that subjects who score high for compassion and low for religiosity are kinder / give more to strangers than any other group; including, presumably, subjects who score high for compassion and high for religiosity. This leads them to conclude that once we control for compassion (done in different ways: analysis of survey statements [exp 1], both watching a compassion-inducing video [exp 2], reporting a momentary feeling of compassion [exp 3]), the non-religious tend to be more generous.

That is, given two people whom their tests rate as equally compassionate, the non-religious person will be likelier to give more to or help out a stranger than the religious person.

I agree with those who say the headline "Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers" is confusing; but not with any other inferences, which, afaict, aren't based on the description we have; fault of the headline, perhaps. I think it might have been better-worded, if more awkwardly: "Compassionate, religious people behave less generously toward strangers than compassionate, non-religious people, studies find"; or something like, editing out the ambiguous "motivated by". All this, of course, within the study's parameters, which we don't have full access to. Nevertheless, from what we are told in the link, that one conclusion appears sound (my very early-morning impression only, fwiw).

[DevilsAdvocate]

"Compassionate, religious people behave less generously toward strangers than compassionate, non-religious people, studies find".

I don’t think the article really says that. It looks like the study just finds that generosity is more influenced by a compassionate plea among non-religious people than religious people.

So you could have equal groups. A non-compassionate plea yields $200 from a religious group and $50 from a non-religious group. And a compassionate plea yields $210 from a religious group and $150 from a non-religious group. In this case, adding the element of compassion hardly changes the generosity of the religious group but greatly increases the generosity of the non-religious group. Therefore, compassion is a much bigger influence on the generosity of non-religious people than religious people.

Or maybe the religious group gave $20 and $21. Or $100 and $110.

The article has this 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.

That would imply that generosity is greater among the religious for non-compassionate pleas and greater among the non-religious for compassionate pleas. But the words are pretty wishy-washy. Hard to tell without seeing the study.

[blobru]

I don’t think the article really says that. It looks like the study just finds that generosity is more influenced by a compassionate plea among non-religious people than religious people

I think that's only part of the implication of experiment 2. Again:
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.So here it seems - though the wording leaves a lot to be desired, it will be clearer in context of experiment 3 - there are two groups: one watches the neutral video, one watches the compassion-inducing video. Among the latter, the least religious give more of their money to a stranger.

So you could have equal groups. A non-compassionate plea yields $200 from a religious group and $50 from a non-religious group. And a compassionate plea yields $210 from a religious group and $150 from a non-religious group. In this case, adding the element of compassion hardly changes the generosity of the religious group but greatly increases the generosity of the non-religious group. Therefore, compassion is a much bigger influence on the generosity of non-religious people than religious people.

Or maybe the religious group gave $20 and $21. Or $100 and $110.Maybe, but that's all speculation: none of the numbers you make up for the groups is suggested by the study (in fact, if the groups are of equal size, and compassion equally distributed among them, your second example - $210 religious vs $150 non-religious - is in conflict with the data, barring an assumption that the non-religious less-compassionate are by far the least generous group, which isn't in the admittedly meager and poorly-identified data we're given). Experiment 3 once more:
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.The only conclusion we can draw from that is that the compassionate non-religious subjects where more likely to share their winnings than other subjects, including, especially, compassionate religious subjects. It says nothing about where less compassionate subjects, either religious or non-religious, nor where the compassionate religious rank as runners-up (and to be precise, unlike experiment 2, where the compassionate non-religious shared more money, this says nothing explicitly about amount, just that the compassionate, non-religious were more likely to share; if we assume, though, their behavior is consistent with experiment 2 and vice versa, then more subjects sharing implies a greater amount as well). The less compassionate non-religious may be more or less generous than either the more compassionate or the less compassionate religious; the study, as reported at least, tells us nothing (one might suspect there was no significant difference between these groups so there was nothing to report, but we'd have to see the data to be sure; we do know the non-religious less-compassionate were less generous than the non-religious highly-compassionate; however, we shouldn't assume they were more or less generous than the religious highly-compassionate or the religious less-compassionate; a non-religious less-compassionate might still have many other motivations than compassion - personal code of ethics, for one - to be generous).

The article has this 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."

That would imply that generosity is greater among the religious for non-compassionate pleas and greater among the non-religious for compassionate pleas. But the words are pretty wishy-washy. Hard to tell without seeing the study.I don't get that implication from Willer's quote. He's only reiterating what's already been concluded from the studies, that the highly compassionate non-religious acted more generously than anyone else, including the highly compassionate religious and the less-compassionate religious (and the less compassionate non-religious), as far as I can see.

And now, having written all this out, I wish I had thought of using abbreviations - hicom norel - for these damned groups much sooner; it's as if I have no compassion for the poor reader nor my typing skills! :p

[The Nimble Pianist]

And conversely:


Basically, the less religious rely on empathy, while the more religious rely on "a sense of moral obligation".

Unfortunately, the original study is behind a pay-wall. I would prefer to read the original study to a reporter's spin on it.

Try again. I just clicked on the link and was taken directly to a PDF, and without logging in through my university or EBSCO/JSTOR.

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/04/25/1948550612444137.full.pdf+html

[Agatha]

You must be automatically logged in, Nimble Pianist, as clicking your link brings up a sign in page for me.

[Beerina]

"Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers"

I thought the wording was a little squiffy when I glanced at it before there were any replies.........

Ya it's definitely someone with an axe to grind. I thought that, too.




"Religious people don't need to rely on a feeling of warm and fuzzies before deciding to help people who need help, unlike people lower on the ethical scale who only help when they get a positive emotional stroke out of it."

[The Nimble Pianist]

I'm going to post the abstract and the main part of the discussion. If it's considered too much, in terms of copying proprietary information, I'm sorry. Please excise whatever is sufficient to satisfy the forum rules.

Past research argues that religious commitments shape individuals’ prosocial sentiments, including their generosity and solidarity. But what drives the prosociality of less religious people? Three studies tested the hypothesis that, with fewer religious expec- tations of prosociality, less religious individuals’ levels of compassion will play a larger role in their prosocial tendencies. In Study 1, religiosity moderated the relationship between trait compassion and prosocial behavior such that compassion was more critical to the generosity of less religious people. In Study 2, a compassion induction increased generosity among less religious individuals but not among more religious individuals. In Study 3, state feelings of compassion predicted increased generosity across a variety of economic tasks for less religious individuals but not among more religious individuals. These results suggest that the prosociality of less religious individuals is driven to a greater extent by levels of compassion than is the prosociality of the more religious.

Across three studies, we found evidence that, with fewer or no religious expectations of prosociality, individual levels of compassion are more crit- ical to the generosity of the less religious. (See Table 1) In Study 1, especially for the less religious, greater trait compas- sion was related to greater self-reported prosociality. In Study 2, the generosity of the less religious (but not the more religious) was influenced by a compassion-inducing versus a neutral video. In Study 3, the generosity on a wide variety of economic tasks of the less religious (but not the more religious) was influ- enced by higher momentary feelings of compassion. The sum of this evidence suggests that the prosociality of less religious individuals is driven to a greater extent by compassion than is the prosociality of the more religious.

[...]

Overall, we might conclude that the less religious may be bound to others by emotional connection. These findings are similar to Batson’s empathy–altruism hypothesis, in which empathy rather than egocentric motivations determine altruis- tic behaviors (Batson & Shaw, 1991). 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.

[...]

Our findings support the idea that compassion shapes other- orientated behavior and attitudes for the less religious, and less so for the more religious, at both trait and state levels. More religious people likely act prosocially based on a variety of influences, compassion being just one of them. Indeed, there are many causes of prosocial behavior (Penner, Dovidio, Pilia- vin, & Schroeder, 2005). Our results support the idea that the other-oriented emotion of compassion significantly influences prosocial inclinations in the less religious.

They performed three studies:

(1) Self-reporting of compassion, religiosity, and frequency of doing pro-social things,

(2) An experimental manipulation of compassion by subjecting some to a video of starving children and others to a video of two men talking, followed by two hypothetical questions,
(a) Imagine you're paired with a stranger and are given $10. You may give as much or as little to him as you'd like. How much do you give?
(b) What proportion of one's income should be spent on charity?

(3) Real-stakes exercises in state compassion in which the participants are asked how compassionate they feel at that moment, and then play various games for points involving the subtle options of selfishly hoarding points or giving them away. They are told at the beginning that the points will be converted into real cash at the end, but are not told the conversion rate of points to dollars.


What I gleaned from a cursory reading of the paper:

(1) Trait compassion and pro-social behavior:
- No significant correlation between reported religiosity and reported compassion.
- Direct correlation between self-reported compassion and self-reported propensity to engage in pro-social behavior.
- Of those in the latter case, the magnitude of the correlation is higher for non-religious than the religious.

(2) Experimental manipulation of compassion:
- Those in the experimental, compassion-induced group would both give more of the $10 to the stranger and state that a higher percentage of one's income should be donated to charity than the control group.
- Within the control group, no correlation between religiosity and propensity to engage in pro-social behavior.
- Within the experimental group, the nonreligious opted to give more of the $10 to the stranger than the religious. Similar, howbeit smaller, results were found in the question concerning what proportion of one's income ought to be donated to charity.

(3) State compassion:
- Direct correlation between self-reported, immediate compassion and propensity to give away points,
- Aforementioned correlation is of higher magnitude for the nonreligious than the religious,
- The mediation of religiosity on giving away points diminished as self-reported compassion diminished.



All-in-all, it seems to me that it's not the case that the nonreligious are more charitable than the religious, but that compassion drives the nonreligious to charitable acts more so than it does the religious.

[blobru]

:) Nice summary, TNP. Thanks! I tried to access the pdf through my local JSTOR account, but it's not subscribed to that journal; it still appears to me from the link's summary that, in addition to the correlation between compassion and non-religiosity for pro-social behavior (generosity), the study found the highly compassionate non-religious as a group behaved most generously, but the wording's ambiguous; the main finding is, as you've stated and DevilsAdvocate suggested earlier, compassion as a driver for pro-social behavior among the non-religious; I am curious, however, about the behavior of the less-compassionate non-religious: is it significantly less generous than for the religious (we know it's less generous than for the compassionate non-religious, who appear to score highest of any group), more, or about the same; or can we even tell from the data?

[truethat]

More alleged "science" about how non believers are better than believers.........many believers do things out of their convictions based on compassion. So although they are helping the poor because of their religious convictions it's because their convictions teach them to be compassionate.

[The Nimble Pianist]

:) Nice summary, TNP. Thanks! I tried to access the pdf through my local JSTOR account, but it's not subscribed to that journal; it still appears to me from the link's summary that, in addition to the correlation between compassion and non-religiosity for pro-social behavior (generosity), the study found the highly compassionate non-religious as a group behaved most generously, but the wording's ambiguous;

I think this can logically be deduced. All three studies showed that the more compassionate exhibited more pro-social behavior, and that of all the compassionate, the nonreligious exhibited more pro-social behavior than their compassionate religious counterparts. Since the nonreligious compassionate are a subset of the compassionate, it follows that in terms of generosity:

nonreligious compassionate > religious compassionate > non-compassionate

I am curious, however, about the behavior of the less-compassionate non-religious: is it significantly less generous than for the religious (we know it's less generous than for the compassionate non-religious, who appear to score highest of any group), more, or about the same; or can we even tell from the data?

Are you asking in terms of compassionate religious or the non-compassionate religious? In all three studies, those who self-identified as compassionate (or were in the compassion-induced experimental group with regards to study #2) were significantly more likely to engage in pro-social behavior compared to the less-compassionate, irrespective of religiosity (and so it logically follows that the compassionate religious were more "generous", as you put it, than their less-compassionate, irreligious counterparts). In all cases, the disparity between the pro-social behaviors of the religious and nonreligious diminished with decreasing compassion.

[The Nimble Pianist]

More alleged "science" about how non believers are better than believers.........many believers do things out of their convictions based on compassion. So although they are helping the poor because of their religious convictions it's because their convictions teach them to be compassionate.

That wasn't my impression at all. The authors' seem to be concluding that compassion is a much larger motivator for the nonreligious than the religious. Take compassion out of the picture (controls), and the religious are essentially indistinguishable from the nonreligious. This doesn't imply that the nonreligious are better than the religious, only that there are other factors, which are not the subject of this paper, driving pro-social behavior among the religious. You might find it edifying to read the abstract and discussion I quoted a few posts up.

[truethat]

I'm not a very big fan of self evaluative interview questions. They remind me of when I was a kid applying for a job at a store. They gave out surveys like this with questions like

What would you do if you so a coworker stealing.

A. Help him steal
B. Tell him to stop
C. Turn him into the boss
D. Do nothing


In all likelihood I'd do nothing but I'd know that wasn't the answer they were looking for. I'd go to pick C but then I'd think "They might think I'm a suck up or not being honest or they might not hire me because I'd turn them in!' I'd be confused.

Also watching a manipulative movie about Children dying will not work on me. Any sort of emotional manipulation will not work. Especially if I know I'm being studied for something so I'm suspect of their whole methodology and how it supposedly proves anything.

[blobru]

-- Are you asking in terms of compassionate religious or the non-compassionate religious? In all three studies, those who self-identified as compassionate (or were in the compassion-induced experimental group with regards to study #2) were significantly more likely to engage in pro-social behavior compared to the less-compassionate, irrespective of religiosity (and so it logically follows that the compassionate religious were more "generous", as you put it, than their less-compassionate, irreligious counterparts). In all cases, the disparity between the pro-social behaviors of the religious and nonreligious diminished with decreasing compassion.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. Seems even though your summary was excellent, idiot me still managed to misread it -- rereading, I see that compassion was found to promote pro-social behavior for both groups, but more for the non-religious than the religious. It seems we can also deduce that the non-religious high-compassion group exhibited the most pro-social behavior. So my question is: Is there anything we can deduce from the data about how the non-religious low-compassion behaved -- specifically: Did the non-religious low-compassion group exhibit less pro-social behavior than the religious low compassion group? You say at the end of your summary:
All-in-all, it seems to me that it's not the case that the nonreligious are more charitable than the religious, but that compassion drives the nonreligious to charitable acts more so than it does the religious. -- which suggests that is the case; I'm just curious if the data explicitly bears that out (would be an interesting finding in itself, I think: overall, the two groups are equally generous; however, with compassion as an influence, the non-religious are more generous; without it, they are less).

[fuelair]

I'm not a very big fan of self evaluative interview questions. They remind me of when I was a kid applying for a job at a store. They gave out surveys like this with questions like

What would you do if you so a coworker stealing.

A. Help him steal
B. Tell him to stop
C. Turn him into the boss
D. Do nothing


In all likelihood I'd do nothing but I'd know that wasn't the answer they were looking for. I'd go to pick C but then I'd think "They might think I'm a suck up or not being honest or they might not hire me because I'd turn them in!' I'd be confused.

Also watching a manipulative movie about Children dying will not work on me. Any sort of emotional manipulation will not work. Especially if I know I'm being studied for something so I'm suspect of their whole methodology and how it supposedly proves anything.

Actually, the proper technique for those tests was to make sure you answered all the questions that were related to honesty the same way. At that time (and I suspect still - based on various bits of data floating around) the tests checked for honesty, integrity, ability to prioritize, work habits/personal habits related to work and related and the questions for each were randomly arranged so that the totality of interest in any specific thing was not as obvious and so they could catch what you were hiding with the more innocuous appearing items.

Picked up a neat book (remember what it said on all sorts of testing, but not title or authors) around '61 or '62 and read it thoroughly!!

[westprog]

Color me unsurprised. Especially after this last bout of highly religious Republican candidates.


Highly religious people are less motivated by compassion than are non-believers (http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/)

This seems to be a classic example of a headline totally at variance with the content of the story - and that's just going by what was actually posted.

[blobru]

Yeah, I had a hard time with the headline and writeup too; but after rereading, plus TNP's excellent summary, they jibe: compassion promoted pro-social behavior more in non-religious subjects than in religious across three studies (with the ancillary finding that the non-religious high-compassion exhibited the most pro-social behavior of any group, followed by the religious high-compassion, the religious low-compassion, and the non-religious low-compassion*).

*inference assumes the religious and non-religious behaved equally pro-socially overall, which seems to have been the case, pending TNP's confirmation