Religious Licensing as a Justification for Immoral Deeds: Experimental Evidence

• In Event: Religion and Political Behavior in Arab Countries

Abstract

Although every religion preaches for a body of morality, research indicates that religiosity sometimes has no, or rather negative effect on pro-sociality. In many Arab countries, high levels of religiosity sometimes co-exist with dishonesty and low levels of trust and cooperation. We explain this puzzle by showing that a specific (but widespread) brand of conservative religious discourse – which emphasizes religious rituals (‘ibadat) at the expense of worldly transactions (m'uamalat) – sometimes creates the perception that religious deeds either justify the neglect of good (worldly) deeds, or remove the guilt otherwise associated with bad (worldly) deeds. This happens via three mechanisms: a. ‘crowding-out’ when over-emphasis on religious observance decreases the time and effort available for pro-social deeds; b. ‘good deed/bad deed accounting’: a belief that religious deed would eventually remove every bad worldly deeds; c. ‘decreased reputational damage’ when public religious observance decreases the social cost of bad deeds. We run three experiments to test whether a reformed religious discourse – emphasizing the religious importance of worldly behavior, and not just rituals – would reverse such religious rationalization. The first is a quality control task (testing efficiency) that is interrupted by the prayer call. The second is an honesty game preceded by a religious act while the third is a dictator game with third-party punishment preceded by a religious donation of the dictator. All games have a control, a conservative discourse, and a reformed discourse treatment. We have preliminary evidence that ‘religious licensing could be reversed via a reformed discourse.

Authors

• Sarah Mansour, Cairo University

• Mazen Hassan, Cairo University

• Nour Abdelbaki, University of Chicago