Source
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 8, (2014), pp. 901-909ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor

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Organization
SW OZ BSI SCP
Journal title
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Volume
vol. 5
Issue
iss. 8
Languages used
English (eng)
Page start
p. 901
Page end
p. 909
Subject
Behaviour Change and Well-beingAbstract
Recent psychological models of religion suggest that religious beliefs provide a form of psychological control. Independently, other research has found that an increase in psychological control can lead people to adopt riskier strategies. Hence, we hypothesized that activation of God concepts increases risk taking. In three studies, we found that God primes led to take greater risk taking as though participants were literally taking a leap of faith. In Study 2, we presented evidence that this effect could be mediated by increased psychological control. Although consistent with psychological models of religion, the findings also contradict some survey findings that religious people are less risk seeking. This inconsistency was addressed in Study 3 by looking at how religion, morality, and risk taking are related. Implications to a relational schema approach to study the effects of God primes are discussed.
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- Faculty of Social Sciences [27347]
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