A camel through the eye of a needle: The influence of the prosperity gospel on financial risk-taking, optimistic bias, and positive emotion.

Abstract

The prosperity gospel is one of the fastest growing religious movements in America. With popularized figures like Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar performing services to sold-out stadiums, new converts are drawn by the optimism-infused messages of positivity and financial wealth. Here we offer a formal scientific test of prosperity gospel’s impact on psychological functioning. In 2 experiments, we tested a set of hypotheses related to the prosperity gospel’s effects on financial risk-taking and positivity bias. The findings revealed that prosperity gospel messages generate heightened optimistic bias (Experiments 1 and 2), high arousal positive affect (Experiment 2), and financial risk-taking (Experiment 1). The results also indicated that even a secularized version of prosperity gospel leads to positivity bias, for both theists and atheists. This suggests the effectiveness of prosperity gospel lies in its ability to evoke positive states rather than communicate specifically religious teachings.

Religiosity, Financial Risk Taking, and Reward Processing: An Experimental Study

“…Previous research has shown controversy over the likelihood of religious individuals taking morality-abiding risks compared to non-religious individuals, including circumstances in which risk-taking was affected by direct or indirect religion-related messages (Chan et al, 2014;Gervais et al, 2020;Kupor et al, 2015). More broadly, it has been argued that higher levels of religiosity, or more frequent interaction with reflective thinking/spirituality (Simonovic et al, 2017) increase the likelihood of FRT, potentially through similar principles found in religious coping strategies (Kim et al, 2018) and reciprocal altruistic behavior encountered in other aspects of religious beliefs and practices (Bulbulia, 2004;Hobson et al, 2021;Trivers, 1971).…”

“…A direct example that bridges the worlds of faith and finance is prosperity gospel, a religious concept which is based on the idea that monetary donations to a divine object will result in monetary rewards through divine sanction (Bowler, 2018). Hobson et al (2021) identified an interplay of factors culminating in the high-risk decision outcome among individuals who engage with prosperity gospel. These include heightened optimistic bias, high arousal positive effect, and 'financial risk-taking' -all cognitive processes repeatedly associated with gambling (a financial risk-taking activity) which have been reported in several studies (Cummins et al, 2009;Delfabbro, 2004).…”