Nat Hum Behav (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01014-3
Abstract
Religions promote cooperation, but they can also be divisive. Is religious cooperation intuitively parochial against atheists? Evidence supporting the social heuristics hypothesis (SHH) suggests that cooperation is intuitive, independent of religious group identity. We tested this prediction in a one-shot prisoner’s dilemma game, where 1,280 practising Christian believers were paired with either a coreligionist or an atheist and where time limits were used to increase reliance on either intuitive or deliberated decisions. We explored another dual-process account of cooperation, the self-control account (SCA), which suggests that visceral reactions tend to be selfish and that cooperation requires deliberation. We found evidence for religious parochialism but no support for SHH’s prediction of intuitive cooperation. Consistent with SCA but requiring confirmation in future studies, exploratory analyses showed that religious parochialism involves decision conflict and concern for strong reciprocity and that deliberation promotes cooperation independent of religious group identity.
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In essence, the research replicated the widespread tendency for group bias. They found Christians were more likely to cooperate with other Christians and, similarly, atheists were more likely to cooperate with other atheists.
But they also found that the participants, particularly the Christians, were able to resist selfish impulses and cooperate more if given time to deliberate and think about their decisions.
