title: The Influence of Divine Rewards and Punishments on Religious Prosociality.
abstract: A common finding across many cultures has been that religious people behave more prosocially than less (or non-) religious people. Numerous priming studies have demonstrated that the activation of religious concepts via implicit and explicit cues (e.g., 'God,' 'salvation,' among many others) increases prosociality in religious people. However, the factors underlying such findings are less clear. In this review we discuss hypotheses (e.g., the supernatural punishment hypothesis) that explain the religion-prosociality link, and also how recent findings in the empirical literature converge to suggest that the divine rewards (e.g., heaven) and punishments (e.g., hell) promised by various religious traditions may play a significant role. In addition, we further discuss inconsistencies in the religion-prosociality literature, as well as existing and future psychological studies which could improve our understanding of whether, and how, concepts of divine rewards and punishments may influence prosociality.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Saleam
authors.affiliation: School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, PenrithNSW, Australia; Marcs Institute for Brain and Behaviour, Department of Veterans Affairs, New Jersey Health Care System, Western Sydney University, PenrithNSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Ahmed A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Moustafa
keywords: morality; priming; prosociality; psychology; punishment; religion; reward