Religiosity and participation in religious activities have been linked with decreased risky behavior. In the current research, we hypothesized that exposure to the concept of God can actually increase people’s willingness to engage in certain types of risks. Across seven studies, reminders of God increased risk taking in nonmoral domains. This effect was mediated by the perceived danger of a risky option and emerged more strongly among individuals who perceive God as a reliable source of safety and protection than among those who do not. Moreover, in an eighth study, when participants were first reminded of God and then took a risk that produced negative consequences (i.e., when divine protection failed to materialize), participants reported feeling more negatively toward God than did participants in the same situation who were not first reminded of God. This research contributes to an understanding of the divergent effects that distinct components of religion can exert on behavior.
AikenL.WestS. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2.
AinsworthM.BleharM.WatersE.WallS. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
3.
ArnettJ. J. (1998). Risk behavior and family role transitions during the twenties. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 27, 301–320.
4.
CainC. (1991). Personal stories: Identity acquisitions and self-understanding in Alcoholics Anonymous. Ethos, 19, 210–235.
5.
ChanK. Q.TongE. M. W.TanY. L. (2014). Taking a leap of faith: Reminders of God lead to greater risk taking. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 901–909.
6.
ExlineJ. J.RoseE. (2005). Religious and spiritual struggles. In PaloutzianR. F.ParkC. L. (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp. 315–330). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
7.
ExlineJ. J.YaliA. M.LobelM. (1999). When God disappoints: Difficulty forgiving God and its role in negative emotion. Journal of Health Psychology, 4, 365–379.
8.
FeherS.MalyR. C. (1999). Coping with breast cancer in later life: The role of religious faith. Psycho-Oncology, 8, 408–416.
9.
FerdinandK. C. (1997). Lessons learned from the Healthy Heart Community Prevention Project in reaching the African American population. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 8, 366–371.
10.
FishbeinM.AjzenI. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
11.
GoodmanJ.VohsK.GoldsteinD.PaolacciG.SmithP.WilcoxK.. . . PlassmannH. (2013, October). Roundtable: Mechanical Turk 2.0: Issues, limitations, & solutions for collecting data. Roundtable at the Association of Consumer Research, Chicago, IL.
12.
HarlowH. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13, 673–685.
13.
HayesA. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
14.
HoffmannJ. P. (2000). Religion and problem gambling in the U.S. Review of Religious Research, 41, 488–509.
15.
HoltC. L.WynnT. A.SouthwardP.LitakerM. S.JeamesS.SchulzE. (2009). Development of a spiritually based educational intervention to increase informed decision making for prostate cancer screening among church-attending African American men. Journal of Health Communication, 14, 590–604.
16.
IronsonG.StuetzleR.FletcherM. (2006). An increase in religiousness/spirituality occurs after HIV diagnosis and predicts slower disease progression over 4 years in people with HIV. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(Suppl. 5), S62–S68.
17.
KirkpatrickL. A.ShaverP. R. (1992). An attachment-theoretical approach to romantic love and religious belief. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 266–275.
18.
KurtzE. (1980). Not-God: A history of Alcoholics Anonymous. Center City, MN: Hazelden Educational Services.
19.
LaurinK.KayA. C.FitzsimonsG. M. (2012). Divergent effects of activating thoughts of God on self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 4–21.
20.
LaurinK.SchumannK.HolmesJ. G. (2014). A relationship with God? Connecting with the divine to assuage fears of interpersonal rejection. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 5, 777–785.
21.
LawrenceR. T. (1997). Measuring the image of God: The God Image Inventory and the God Image Scales. Journal of Psychology & Theology, 25, 214–226.
22.
LejuezC. W.ReadJ. P.KahlerC. W.RichardsJ. B.RamseyS. E.StuartG. L.. . . BrownR. A. (2002). Evaluation of a behavioral measure of risk taking: The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 75–84.
MarsigliaF. F.KulisS.NieriT.ParsaiM. (2005). God forbid! Substance use among religious and nonreligious youth. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 75, 585–598.
26.
MazarN.AmirO.ArielyD. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 633–644.
27.
NoussairC. N.TrautmannS. T.van de KuilenG.VellekoopN. (2013). Risk aversion and religion. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 47, 165–183.
28.
PargamentK. I.KoenigH. G.TarakeshwarN.HahnJ. (2001). Religious struggle as a predictor of mortality among medically ill elderly patients: A 2-year longitudinal study. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 1881–1885.
29.
PargamentK. I.ZinnbauerB. J.ScottA. B.ButterE. M.ZerowinJ.StanikP. (1998). Red flags and religious coping: Identifying some religious warning signs among people in crisis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54, 77–89.
30.
ParkC. L. (2005). Religion as a meaning-making framework in coping with life stress. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 707–729.
31.
RowattW.KirkpatrickL. A. (2002). Two dimensions of attachment to God and their relation to affect, religiosity, and personality constructs. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 637–651.
32.
ShariffA. F.NorenzayanA. (2007). God is watching you: Priming God concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. Psychological Science, 18, 803–809.
33.
ShariffA. F.NorenzayanA. (2011). Mean gods make good people: Different views of God predict cheating behavior. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 21, 85–96.
SlingerlandE.HenrichJ.NorenzayanA. (2013). The evolution of prosocial religions. In RichersonP. J.ChristiansenM. H. (Eds.), Cultural evolution: Society, technology, language and religion (pp. 335–349). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
36.
SteinmanK. J.ZimmermanM. A. (2004). Religious activity and risk behavior among African American adolescents: Concurrent and developmental effects. American Journal of Community Psychology, 33, 151–161.
37.
TormalaZ. L.JiaJ. S.NortonM. I. (2012). The preference for potential. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 567–583.
38.
WallaceJ.BachmanJ. (1991). Explaining racial/ethnic differences in adolescent drug use: The impact of background and lifestyle. Social Problems, 38, 333–357.
39.
WeberE. U.BlaisA.-R.BetzN. (2002). A domain-specific risk-attitude scale: Measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15, 263–290.
WingoodG. M.Simpson-RobinsonL.BraxtonN. D.RaifordJ. L. (2011). Design of a faith-based HIV intervention: Successful collaboration between a university and a church. Health Promotion Practice, 21, 823–831.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
