A recent study conducted in-part by a University psychologist points to a definitive link between religious perceptions and academic honesty.
The two-part study — conducted by University psychologist Azim Shariff and University of British Columbia social psychologist Ara Norenzayan — suggests that an individual’s fear of Godly punishment has a significant impact on their disposition to cheating and other prohibited behavior.
In the first part of the study, 61 undergraduate students were told to take a simple yet tedious math test on a computer in which they could cheat and use the space bar on a keyboard to avoid submitting the correct answer. The students were then questioned about their religiosity, their views of God and their demographics, which were then analyzed to provide a rough sketch of an individual student’s perceptions of their God as being loving, caring and forgiving or harsh, punitive, vengeful and punishing.
“We have found that believing in God or not didn’t predict cheating; however what kind of God people believe in did matter: belief in a punishing God was predictive of less cheating when no one was watching,” Norenzayan said in an e-mail. “We think that belief in gods who monitor and punish curbs dishonest behavior because God is watching even when no one else is — that is, when the situation is completely anonymous.”
Shariff said the findings seem to affirm the supernatural punishment hypothesis in which supernatural punishing agents in the form of religious deities arose in ancient cultures out of an intrinsic need for people to cooperate in large, unfamiliar groups.
“In situations where people would otherwise cheat without any policing force, any supernatural punishment agent — like a god — was able to take over that policing force, which in turn encouraged moral behavior,” Shariff said. “A punishing perception of supernatural entities across all religions would be more effective in keeping people morally aligned than that of a loving, comforting, or forgiving perception.”
Nevertheless, Shariff said the results should not be applied broadly to other types of moral behaviors, but noted that the research seems to support previous ones that highlighted the effect of religious perceptions on a society’s moral behavior.
“We should be cautious not to overstate the conclusions from the data, because the study itself was focused on one type of moral behavior,” Shariff said. “It’s possible that it might generalize to other forms of moral behavior such as charity or generosity, but it’s not clear that it does.”
Norenzayan said asserting religious authority should not be the only solution to reinforcing proper moral behavior, and that some societies have used a fear of God because there were no other alternative means of policing negative behaviors.
“It is very important to emphasize that we are not arguing that religion is the only way to solve this problem,” Norenzayan said. “There are other ways… but historically, these institutions and technologies were not available. Religion with watchful deities who punish bad behavior was historically the only game in town to keep people in line.”
Warren Light, the campus pastor at the University’s Wesley Center and Wesley Foundation director, however, said he is skeptical of the study’s findings.
“My gut feeling tells me that it is probably incorrect,” Light said. “There have been many people who have passed through these doors (at the Wesley Center) and very few of them have an image of God that is condemning and cruel. I don’t think that an image of God or anything that causes grief and anxiety and comes out of cruelty is very helpful for anyone.”
[email protected]