What is it about?
The paradox of religion as implying both ingroup prosociality and outgroup prejudice is not only attested at the cognitive or dispositional level. Across two experiments, we found behavioral evidence for both: religious people tended (a) to express physical aggression toward a gay person--by giving more hot sauce; and (b) to accept a confederate's request for help.
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Why is it important?
in both the social debate and science, (religious) people often doubt that religious homophobia is something more serious than simply having a negative opinion about homosexuality. Similarly, (non-religious) people often doubt that religious prosociality is something more substantial than simply expressing kind prosocial dispositions and intentions. We provided experimental behavioral evidence that both religious homophobia/prejudice and ingroup prosociality are real.
Perspectives
Conservative religious people and religious leaders often argue that they well distinguish between "hating the sin" and "loving the sinner". In line with previous work by Batson et al., we provide evidence that this is not the case--and this through a behavioral measure of hostility and in a secularized Western country. In parallel, nonbelievers often argue that religious people are prosocial only in their mind. We provided evidence that this extends beyond intentions and translates into a real offer of helping a person in need, at least a confederate (another student).
Professor Vassilis Saroglou
Universite catholique de Louvain
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Religious Prosociality and Aggression: It's Real, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, September 2013, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/jssr.12048.
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