New research published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science has found that being exposed to the word God can increase risk-taking behaviors in some situations, even among those who don’t believe in the divine creator.
“Religion has great impact on humanity,” Kai Qin Chan, Eddie Mun Wai Tong, and Yan Lin Tan wrote in their study. “More specific to this research, God as a dominant agent of religion can exert powerful effects on people. These influences can be subtle and nonconscious triggered by innocuous objects such as the stack of papers used to prime God in Studies 2 and 3, which resemble common things found in daily life (e.g., books, posters, and billboards).”
Previous “priming” research has shown that you can affect people’s behavior by subtly reminding them of certain concepts, including religious concepts. For their research, Chan and his colleagues conducted three studies in which undergraduate students in Singapore were exposed to the word God and then completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, a game designed specifically to measure risk taking.
The researchers were inspired to conduct the studies after learning of “Adam and Eve” — two boulders that sit about 4 feet apart on the Tryfan mountain in Northern Wales. “Jumping across the boulders is a popular activity, despite the risk of free falling 3,000 feet,” they noted.
“This raises the question whether these biblical references have anything to do with people accepting the risk to jump across them.”
The first study confirmed that people exposed to the word God took more risks than those exposed to words like father or water, while the second study found evidence that psychological control was the mechanism that linked the concept of God to heightened risk taking.
Chan and his colleagues noted that “several theorists have postulated that religion fulfills basic psychological needs and imbues individuals with a sense of control in a world that is seemingly filled with randomness and chaos.” Previous research has found that “when life seemed uncertain, people increased their belief in a God that is in control of chaos.”
The findings, however, presented a dilemma for the researchers. Studies have consistently found that religiosity is linked to less risk taking, not more. More religious people are less likely to engage in unprotected casual sex or gamble, for example.
Chan and his colleagues hypothesized that reminders of God increased risk-taking behaviors in their first two studies because the risk involved was morally neutral. “But if there are moral injunctions associated with the risky act, we hypothesize that people would take less risk when primed with God,” they said.
In their third study, the researchers made the participants read either a fake scientific article claiming that performance on the balloon game predicts unethical money-related crimes or a fake scientific article claiming the balloon game predicts negative health outcomes. The participants were then exposed to either the phrase “The Nature of God” or “The Nature of Fairies” before taking the Balloon Analogue Risk Task.
Confirming the researchers’ hypothesis, the study found individuals primed with God displayed less risk taking than those primed with Fairies — but only among those who believed the game predicted immoral behavior. The God prime still increased risk taking among participants who read the amoral article before attempting the game.
Chan and his colleagues noted their three studies were comprised of Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists. Yet the participants’ religious affiliation appeared to have no effect on the link between the concept of God and risk taking.
Despite the religious diversity of the participants, the researchers believe they have all learned similar concepts about God.
“Our samples were obtained in Singapore, a small city-state in which members of different religious groups are exposed to similar messages about each religious concept through everyday interaction, educational settings, and the media. It therefore may not be surprising that a similar construct of God and learned associations with risk taking were shared across affiliations,” they explained.
