Thinking about God encourages intergroup prosociality even when conflict is salient

Pasek, Michael H., Lehner, Anne, Hartley, Starlett, Yul Kwon, Jung, Roselyn Mokosoi Israel, Adiama, Wati, Reshmi and Ginges, Jeremy ORCID: 0000-0003-2212-5608 (2025) Thinking about God encourages intergroup prosociality even when conflict is salient. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. ISSN 1368-4302

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Abstract

Recent research documents that thinking about God encourages intergroup prosociality among believers. An open question is whether such increased prosociality is dampened by intergroup conflict. We conducted preregistered field experiments with two ethno-religious populations in Fiji: indigenous Christian iTaukei ( N = 324) and Hindu Indo-Fijians ( N = 280). In each study, we manipulated (between-person) whether participants thought about intergroup conflict before completing a dictator game in which we manipulated (within-person) whether participants thought about God’s preferences when allocating real money to an outgroup member. Although participants who reflected on intergroup conflict gave less money away to outgroup members, thinking about God led to significant and comparable increases in intergroup prosociality regardless of whether participants thought about conflict. Results challenge widely-held assumptions about the role of religious belief in intergroup conflict and raise questions about mechanisms that are often theorized to explain the spread of religious beliefs themselves.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Authors
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	H Social Sciences B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2025 17:00
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2025 17:03
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/127122

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