We examine empirical evidence for religious prosociality, the hypothesis that religions facilitate costly behaviors that benefit other people. Although sociological surveys reveal an association between self-reports of religiosity and prosociality, experiments measuring religiosity and actual prosocial behavior suggest that this association emerges primarily in contexts where reputational conce...

Although numerous studies link adolescent religiousness to a variety of outcomes, limitations in the measurement of adolescent religiousness constrain interpretation of the findings. We introduce a multi-item measure of adolescent religiousness, the Religious Commitment Inventory for Adolescents (RCI-A), that assesses both religious behavior and sentiments and is appropriate for use with adoles...

Immigrants and Religion Religious considerations affect the decision to immigrate as well as the choice of destination country, and religious behaviors change as immigrants adjust to the economic context of their new country. This paper considers the interaction between the Economics of Religion and the Economics of Immigration, and distinguishes between religiosity per se and an immigrant’s re...

We explored the emotional and attitudinal consequences of personal attitude-behavior discrepancies using a religious version of the hypocrisy paradigm. We induced cognitive dissonance in participants (n = 206) by making them feel hypocritical for advocating certain religious behaviors that they had not recently engaged in to their own satisfaction. In Experiment 1, this resulted in higher level...

This study examines how religious activity is associated with risk behaviors, concurrently and developmentally among urban African American adolescents. Seven hundred and five African American youths were interviewed annually during high school. Retention rates for the study exceeded 90%. Frequency of religious activity, sexual intercourse, and alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use were assesse...

Many challenges confront evolutionary scholars of religion. The origins and adaptive value of religion and the conditions that selected for its evolution are difficult to discern. Patterns of religious behavior, like other areas of human social behavior, have undergone significant change over our evolutionary history. Evans-Pritchard1 argued that dramatic historical changes in religious behavio...

Prior research has found mixed evidence for the long-theorized link between religiosity and pro-social behavior. To help overcome this divergence, I hypothesize that pro-social behavior is linked not to religiosity per se, but rather to the salience of religion and religious norms. I report a field experiment that examined when auction participants will respond to an appeal to continue bidding ...

The movement of people from one country to another and the subsequent settling of migrants in host communities diversely affect all parties in relocation processes. Directly or indirectly, both migrant and their host communities respond differently to the worldviews of the migrants and the socio-cultural contexts of the host communities. While the religious beliefs of people appear to be the le...

The neuropsychology of religious activity in normal and selected clinical populations is reviewed. Religious activity includes beliefs, experiences, and practice. Neuropsychological and functional imaging findings, many of which have derived from studies of experienced meditators, point to a ventral cortical axis for religious behavior, involving primarily the ventromedial temporal and frontal ...