PS3090 Advanced & Applied Social Psychology

RELIGION AND MORALITY

Dr Ryan McKay
(Psychology, Royal Holloway, W235;
ryan.mckay@rhul.ac.uk)

There has been an explosion of theoretical and empirical research on religion

and morality in the past few years. In the lecture I will try to provide an
overview of some of the key concepts, but this is really just a basis for further
exploration. In the list below I provide some key theoretical overviews, and
then a range of more specific reading suggestions.

KEY REFERENCES:
 McKay, R. & Whitehouse, H. (2015). Religion and morality.
Psychological Bulletin, 141(2), 447-473. PDF Available here:
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycarticles/2014-56563-001.pdf&productCode=pa
 Bloom, P. (2012). Religion, morality, evolution. Annual Review of
Psychology, 63, 179-199. PDF Available here:
http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100334
 Baumard, N. & Boyer, P. (2013). Explaining moral religions. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 17(6), 272-80. PDF Available here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661313000764

ADAPTIVIST AND BYPRODUCT ACCOUNTS:

 Pyysiäinen, I. & Hauser, M. (2010). The origins of religion: Evolved
adaptation or by-product? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 104-9.
PDF Available here:
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S1364661309002897
 Bulbulia, J. (2004). The cognitive and evolutionary psychology of
religion. Biology & Philosophy, 19, 655-686. PDF available here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/hp3j107822432578/fulltext.pdf
 Barrett, J. L. (2000). Exploring the natural foundations of religion.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(1), 29-34. PDF Available through
ScienceDirect.
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S1364661399014199
 Boyer, P. (2003). Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of
brain function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 119-124. PDF
Available here:
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S1364661303000317

LARGE RECENT CORRELATIONAL STUDY:

 Branas-Garza, P., Espın, A. M. & Neuman, S. (2014). Religious pro-
 sociality? Experimental evidence from a sample of 766 Spaniards. PLoS
ONE, 9(8): e104685. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104685 PDF here:
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi
%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0104685&representation=PDF

IMPLICIT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN RELIGION AND MORALITY:

 Gervais, W. M. (2014). Everything is permitted? People intuitively
judge immorality as representative of atheists. PLoS ONE 9(4):
e92302. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0092302 PDF here:
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?
uri=info%3Adoi
%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092302&representation=PDF

SOME RELIGIOUS PRIMING STUDIES:

 Shariff, A. F. & Norenzayan, A. (2007). God is watching you: Priming
God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic
game. Psychological Science, 18, 803-809. This is a seminal paper
in the area of religious priming. PDF Available here:
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/40064818
 Randolph-Seng, B. & Nielsen, M. E. (2008). Is God really watching
you? A response to Shariff and Norenzayan (2007). The International
Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 18, 119-122. This paper is a
theoretical and methodological critique of Shariff &
Norenzayan (2007). Available here: http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?
url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508610701879373#abstract
 Pichon, I., Boccato, G. & Saroglou, V. (2007). Nonconscious influences
of religion on prosociality: A priming study. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 37,
1032–1045. PDF Available here:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.416/pdf
 Malhotra, D. (2010). (When) are religious people nicer? Religious
salience and the “Sunday Effect” on pro-social behavior. Judgment and
Decision Making, 5(2), 138–143. PDF available here:
http://journal.sjdm.org/10/10216/jdm10216.pdf
 Ahmed A M, Salas O (2011) Implicit influences of Christian religious
representations on dictator and prisoner’s dilemma game decisions.
The Journal of Socio-Economics 40: 242-246. PDF available here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535710001666
 Aveyard, M. E. (2014). A call to honesty: Extending religious priming of
moral behavior to Middle Eastern Muslims. PLoS ONE, 9(7), e99447.
PDF available here: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info
%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0099447&representation=PDF

SOME SURVEILLANCE PRIME STUDIES:

 Haley, K. J. & Fessler, D. M. T. (2005). Nobody’s watching? Subtle cues
can affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution &
Human Behavior, 26, 245-256. This is the original ‘eye spots’
 study. Available here:
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/S1090513805000036
 Bateson M, Nettle D, Roberts G (2006) Cues of being watched enhance
cooperation in a real-world setting. Biol Lett 2: 412-414. PDF Available
here: ttp://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/3/412.full
 Rigdon M, Ishii K, Watabe M, Kitayama S (2009) Minimal social cues
in the dictator game. Journal of Economic Psychology 30: 358-367.
PDF Available here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487009000154
 Bering J M, McLeod K A, Shackelford T K (2005) Reasoning about
dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. Human Nature 16: 360-
81. PDF Available here:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/5b6qld7wqgelj345/
 Piazza J, Bering J M, Ingram G (2011) “Princess Alice is watching you”:
Children’s belief in an invisible person inhibits cheating. J Exp Child
Psychol 109: 311-320. PDF Available here:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002209651100035X

DARK SIDE OF RELIGIOUS PROSOCIALITY:

 Bushman, B. J., Ridge, R. D., Das, E., Key, C. W. & Busath, G. L.
(2007). When God sanctions killing: Effect of scriptural violence on
aggression. Psychological Science, 18(3), 204-207. PDF Available here:
http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/39451
 Ginges, J., Hansen, I. & Norenzayan, A. (2009). Religion and support
for suicide attacks. Psychological Science, 20(2), 224-230. PDF
Available here:
http://ezproxy01.rhul.ac.uk/login?url=http://pss.sagepub.com/content/
20/2/224.abstract