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Article | Judgment and Decision Making

(When) Are Religious People Nicer? Religious Salience and the 'Sunday Effect' on Pro-social Behavior

by Deepak Malhotra

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Abstract

Prior research has found mixed evidence for the long-theorized link between religiosity and pro-social behavior. To help overcome this divergence, we hypothesize that pro-social behavior is linked not to religiosity per se, but rather to the salience of religion and religious norms. We report on a field experiment that examines when auction participants will respond to an appeal to continue bidding for secular charitable causes. The results reveal that religious individuals are more likely than non-religious individuals to respond to an appeal for charity only on days that they visit their place of worship; on other days of the week, religiosity has no effect. Notably, the result persists after controlling for a host of factors that may influence bidding, but disappears when the appeal for charity is replaced by an appeal to bid for other reasons. Implications for the link between religion and pro-social behavior are discussed.

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Religion; Behavior; Societal Protocols;

Format: Print 6 pages Find at Harvard Read Now

Citation:

Malhotra, Deepak. "(When) Are Religious People Nicer? Religious Salience and the 'Sunday Effect' on Pro-social Behavior." Judgment and Decision Making 5, no. 2 (April 2010): 138–143.

About the Author

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Deepak Malhotra
Eli Goldston Professor of Business Administration
Negotiation, Organizations & Markets

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More from the Author

  • Article | Harvard Business Review (website) | February 1, 2019

    What Theresa May Might Learn from Woodrow Wilson's Failed Negotiations in 1919

    Deepak Malhotra

    On December 13, 2018, UK Prime Minister Theresa May met with her European counterparts in an attempt to renegotiate the “Brexit deal” she had reached with them only weeks earlier; the deal was facing harsh criticism and almost certain rejection at home. Perhaps only the keenest students of history could have noticed that when she landed in Brussels, it was precisely 100 years—to the day—after another world leader, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, had visited the continent in the hopes of saving it. Both the parallels and the perpendicularities between the negotiation sagas of Theresa May and Woodrow Wilson are stunning. As May tries to negotiate the Brexit endgame, she might well consider three lessons from Wilson’s futile diplomacy during his last year in office.

    Keywords: Brexit; Negotiation; Negotiation Deal; Learning; History;

    Citation:

    Malhotra, Deepak. "What Theresa May Might Learn from Woodrow Wilson's Failed Negotiations in 1919." Harvard Business Review (website) (February 1, 2019).  View Details
    CiteView Details Register to Read Related
  • Editorial | New York Times | December 20, 2018

    I'm an Expert on Negotiations, and I Have Some Advice for Theresa May

    Deepak Malhotra

    Keywords: negotiation;

    Citation:

    Malhotra, Deepak. "I'm an Expert on Negotiations, and I Have Some Advice for Theresa May." New York Times (December 20, 2018).  View Details
    CiteView Details Read Now Related
  • Article | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | 2017

    Handgun Waiting Periods Reduce Gun Deaths

    Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra and Christopher Poliquin

    Handgun waiting periods are laws that impose a delay between the initiation of a purchase and final acquisition of a firearm. We show that waiting periods, which create a “cooling off” period among buyers, significantly reduce the incidence of gun violence. We estimate the impact of waiting periods on gun deaths, exploiting all changes to state-level policies in the Unites States since 1970. We find that waiting periods reduce gun homicides by roughly 17%. We provide further support for the causal impact of waiting periods on homicides by exploiting a natural experiment resulting from a federal law in 1994 that imposed a temporary waiting period on a subset of states.

    Keywords: gun policy; gun violence; waiting period; injury prevention; Policy; Safety; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; United States;

    Citation:

    Luca, Michael, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin. "Handgun Waiting Periods Reduce Gun Deaths." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114, no. 46 (November 14, 2017).  View Details
    CiteView DetailsFind at Harvard Related
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