Shame and Religious Prosociality

Abstract

Religious-political entrepreneurs often claim that a more religiously-inspired society will promote ethical and community-minded behavior. Previous work has indeed demonstrated that people in religious contexts tend to exhibit more prosocial behavior than people in secular contexts. What explains this "religious advantage?'' I distinguish between two classes of motivations that may underlie this general finding: a "private'' motivation, such as a heightened regard for others' welfare or an awareness of divine observation, and a "community-based'' or public motivation, such as the fear of shaming or sanctioning by other people. I test these two mechanisms using a set of experiments in Indonesia in which I vary the anonymity of players and prime some subjects for religious identity. I find that the Islamic prime elicited strongly heightened generosity by Muslim men, but only when shaming is possible. The results lend support to the community-based view of religious ethics and show no evidence for a private motivation for the religious advantage.

Keywords: Religion, Islam, Indonesia, pro-social behavior, shame