Do Religious Contexts Elicit More Trust and Altruism? Decision-Making Scenario Experiments

We design a decision-making scenario experiment on Facebook to measure subjects’ altruism and trust towards attendees of religious service, a fitness class and a local music performance. Secular and religious subjects alike display significantly more altruism and trust towards the synagogue attendees than attendees of the other two non-religious venues. We also find that secular subjects are just as altruistic towards synagogue and prayer group …