Studies support an association between religious belief and prosocial behavior. Such has been attributed to fear of supernatural punishment and enhanced concern for a prosocial reputation and self-image. Hence, religious individuals may be more prone to pursue their self-interest indirectly, thereby averting personal responsibility. We conducted 12 studies ( = 4468) to examine whether religiosity predicts delegation in incentivized deception, dictator, and die-roll cheating games and in realistic scenarios. Participants could choose between an immoral (e.g., lying) and a moral, prosocial (e.g., honest/fair) option or leave this decision to another individual (the agent) who equally benefited from the immoral option. Across all studies, religiosity positively predicted delegation, even though participants could directly implement prosocial outcomes. Employing experimental manipulations of participants' interests, we found that the predictive effect of religiosity on delegation only emerged when participants could expect to benefit from the agent's decision, but not when they were not affected by it or could be harmed by it. At the same time, religiosity predicted prosocial decisions among non-delegating participants. Moreover, delegating participants felt less bad and responsible about their decisions and victims' outcomes. Taken together, these findings suggest that delegation is strategically employed by individuals who would otherwise act prosocially to pursue selfish interests while avoiding responsibility and blame. They further support the notion of religious prosociality as a multi-faceted, context-dependent phenomenon.

中文翻译：

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宗教信仰预测道德和自私的不道德结果之间的决策授权


研究支持宗教信仰和亲社会行为之间的联系。这归因于对超自然惩罚的恐惧以及对亲社会声誉和自我形象的日益关注。因此，宗教人士可能更倾向于间接追求自身利益，从而逃避个人责任。我们进行了 12 项研究 (= 4468)，以检验宗教信仰是否会在激励性欺骗、独裁者和掷骰子作弊游戏以及现实场景中预测授权。参与者可以在不道德（例如撒谎）和道德、亲社会（例如诚实/公平）选项之间进行选择，或者将这个决定留给同样从不道德选项中受益的另一个人（代理人）。在所有研究中，宗教信仰积极预测授权，尽管参与者可以直接实现亲社会的结果。通过对参与者利益的实验操纵，我们发现，只有当参与者期望从代理人的决定中受益时，宗教信仰对授权的预测作用才会出现，而当他们不受代理人的决定影响或可能受到代理人的决定伤害时，则不会出现。与此同时，宗教信仰预示着非授权参与者的亲社会决策。此外，授权参与者对自己的决定和受害者的结果感到不那么糟糕和负责任。总而言之，这些研究结果表明，授权是由个人战略性地使用的，否则他们会采取亲社会行为来追求自私利益，同时避免责任和指责。他们进一步支持宗教亲社会性作为一种多方面的、依赖于背景的现象的概念。