Thinking about God discourages dehumanization of religious outgroups.

Abstract

In seven studies, six with American Christians and one with Israeli Jews (total N = 2,323), we examine how and when belief in moralizing gods influences dehumanization of ethno-religious outgroups. We focus on dehumanization because it is a key feature of intergroup conflict. In Studies 1-6, participants completed measures of dehumanization from their own perspectives and also from the perspective of God, rating the groups' humanity as they thought God would rate it, or wish for them to rate it. When participants completed measures from both their own and God's perspectives, they reported believing that, compared with their own views, God would see (or prefer for them to see) outgroup members as more human. In Study 7, we extend these findings by demonstrating that thinking about God's views reduces the extent to which religious believers personally dehumanize outgroup members. Collectively, results demonstrate that religious believers attribute universalizing moral attitudes to God, compared to themselves, and document how thinking about God's views can promote more positive intergroup attitudes.

Social robots as depictions of social agents

“…For example, people vary in how much humanness (e.g., agency, experience) they attribute to outgroup members (e.g., Krumhuber, Swiderska, Tsankova, Kamble, & Kappas, 2015), pets (e.g., McConnell, Lloyd, & Buchanan, 2017), and fictional characters (e.g., Banks & Bowman, 2016). This variability emerges across individuals, situations (e.g., Smith et al, 2022), and within interactions (e.g., Haslam, 2006). According to the trait attribution approach, similar individual and situational factors can predict when people respond to a robot in a human-like way.…”

Thinking About God Encourages Prosociality Toward Religious Outgroups: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

“…We opted not to counterbalance conditions because we suspected that it would be difficult to undo the effect of thinking about God once our experimental manipulation made God salient, rendering it hard to obtain a baseline measure. Notably, prior research demonstrates that effects of similar within-subjects god manipulations were not artifacts of an order effect (Smith et al, 2022;White et al, 2019).…”

“…Religiously inspired prosociality is often thought to be parochial and to exacerbate religious division (Armstrong, 2014; Atran & Ginges, 2012; Bloom, 2012; Dawkins, 2006; Hitchens, 2008; Lang et al, 2019; Neuberg et al, 2014; Norenzayan et al, 2016; Purzycki et al, 2016; White et al, 2019). However, it is also possible that prosociality inspired by belief in God extends across intergroup boundaries to facilitate cooperation and trade (Ginges et al, 2016; McKay & Whitehouse, 2016; Pasek et al, 2020; Smith et al, 2022). We addressed this debate by asking whether thinking about one’s god fosters prosocial behavior toward people with differing religious beliefs and identities.…”

“…One set of cross-cultural studies demonstrates that people assume that God prefers more equal valuation of ingroup and outgroup lives than they themselves do (Ginges et al, 2016; Pasek et al, 2020; Smith et al, 2022). This and other work (Clingingsmith & Khwaja, 2009) suggests that thinking about God might promote extended prosociality.…”

Trait attribution explains human–robot interactions

“…For example, people vary in how much humanness (e.g., agency, experience) they attribute to outgroup members (e.g., Krumhuber, Swiderska, Tsankova, Kamble, & Kappas, 2015), pets (e.g., McConnell, Lloyd, & Buchanan, 2017), and fictional characters (e.g., Banks & Bowman, 2016). This variability emerges across individuals, situations (e.g., Smith et al, 2022), and within interactions (e.g., Haslam, 2006). According to the trait attribution approach, similar individual and situational factors can predict when people respond to a robot in a human-like way.…”