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Personality and Social Psychology
http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/08/0146167213510951
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DOI: 10.1177/0146167213510951
published online 11 November 2013Pers Soc Psychol Bull
Olga Stavrova and Pascal Siegers
Effects of Personal Religiosity on Prosocial and Moral Attitudes and Behaviors
Religious Prosociality and Morality Across Cultures: How Social Enforcement of Religion Shapes the
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Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin
XX(X) 1 –19
© 2013 by the Society for Personality
and Social Psychology, Inc
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DOI: 10.1177/0146167213510951
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Article
All world religions contain ethical principles that prescribe
prosocial and other-regarding behavior. Examples are Jesus’
parable of the Good Samaritan, Lao-Tzu’s description of
truly virtuous persons as being good to both good and bad
people (“Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained,” 2006,
Chapter 27), and the Qur’an’s definition of a virtuous man as
he who “gives his wealth . . . to kinsfolk and to orphans and
the needy and the wayfarer and to those who ask for help . . .
(2:177).”
Researchers have long wondered whether these principles
directly translate into the actual behavior of believers, mak-
ing them more helpful, altruistic, and virtuous than non-
believers. There is a wealth of studies linking religiosity to
prosocial behaviors such as giving to charity, volunteering,
helping strangers, or even giving in economic experimental
games (Ahmed, 2009; Myers, 2012; Paciotti et al., 2011;
Regnerus, Smith, & Sikkink, 1998; Saroglou, Pichon,
Trompette, Verschueren, & Dernelle, 2005). At the same
time, a vast body of literature suggests that religious proso-
ciality exists but is limited in scope and strength (e.g.,
Preston, Ritter, & Hernandez, 2010; Saroglou, 2012, 2013).
Last, other authors hold a more extreme position, suggesting
that the prosociality of religious individuals is not “genuine”
because it is driven by self-motivation rather than other-
directed motivation (e.g., Batson et al., 1989) or because it
can be “explained away” by social desirability (Galen, 2012)
or reduced to in-group favoritism (e.g., Ben-Ner, McCall,
Stephane, & Wang, 2009).
This article aims to explain these contradictory findings.
We suggest that there is a condition that can switch the asso-
ciation between religiosity and prosociality on and off: the
degree to which religiosity is socially enforced in a culture.
Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan,
2000), we suggest that the degree of social enforcement of
religiosity in a country determines whether religious beliefs
and behavior are endorsed for reasons of social conformity
or for intrinsic personal motives. Psychological research has
shown that individuals are generally more committed to
values and tasks that they deem to be personally chosen
510951PSPXXX10.1177/0146167213510951Personality and Social Psychology BulletinStavrova and Siegers
research-article2013
1University of Cologne, Germany
2GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany
Corresponding Author:
Olga Stavrova, Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of
Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany.
Email: stavrovo@uni-koeln.de
Religious Prosociality and Morality Across
Cultures: How Social Enforcement of
Religion Shapes the Effects of Personal
Religiosity on Prosocial and Moral
Attitudes and Behaviors
Olga Stavrova1 and Pascal Siegers2
Abstract
The question of whether religiosity is linked to prosocial behavior is currently hotly debated in psychology. This research
contributes to this debate by showing that the nature of individuals’ religious orientations and their relationships to prosociality
depend on their country’s social enforcement of religiosity. Our analyses of data from more than 70 countries indicate that
in countries with no social pressure to follow a religion, religious individuals are more likely to endorse an intrinsic religious
orientation (Study 1), engage in charity work (Study 2), disapprove of lying in their own interests (Study 3), and are less likely
to engage in fraudulent behaviors (Study 4) compared with non-religious individuals. Ironically, in secular contexts, religious
individuals are also more likely to condemn certain moral choices than non-religious individuals (Study 2). These effects of
religiosity substantially weaken (and ultimately disappear) with increasing national levels of social enforcement of religiosity.
Keywords
religiosity, prosocial and antisocial behavior, moral attitudes, self-determination theory, culture
Received June 17, 2013; revision accepted October 4, 2013
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2 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
rather than imposed by others (Freedman & Steinbruner,
1964; Ryan & Deci, 2000, 2001). Do individuals whose reli-
gious beliefs are a result of personal choice show a stronger
commitment to the teachings of their religions compared
with individuals whose religiosity is a result of following a
social norm? Specifically, in countries in which religiosity
represents a domain of personal choice, does personal religi-
osity play a more important role in determining individuals’
commitment to the tenets of their faith than in countries in
which religiosity is socially enforced? Does a country’s
enforcement of religiosity determine the degree to which
religious individuals adhere to values promoted by their reli-
gions, such as helping others and being honest? Does it affect
the degree to which individuals condemn moral choices that
the teachings of their religion deem sinful, such as homo-
sexuality or divorce? In the present research, we explore these
questions by examining whether the degree of religiosity
enforcement in a country shapes the associations between per-
sonal religiosity and intrinsic religious orientation (Study 1),
condemnation of liberal morality (Study 2), charity member-
ship (Study 2), justification of lying in one’s own interest
(Study 3), and the frequency of cheating behavior (Study 4).
Religious Prosociality and Religious
“Antisociality”
Religion is often viewed as a foundation of morality by both
laypeople and those who study religion scientifically
(Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2009; Stark, 2001).
The idea that religion contributes to prosociality and altru-
ism is reflected in multiple theoretical perspectives, includ-
ing the norm internalization (Myers, 2012), functionalist
sociological (Durkheim, 1897/1951; Graham & Haidt,
2010), evolutionary psychology (Wilson, 2002) perspec-
tives, to name a few.
In line with these theoretical assumptions, survey research
has shown that religious individuals tend to be more agree-
able, ready to forgive, and more helpful than non-religious
individuals (Saroglou, 2010; Saroglou, Delpierre, &
Dernelle, 2004; Saroglou et al., 2005). A variety of studies
have linked religiosity to volunteering and charity member-
ship (Lam, 2002; Loveland, Sikkink, Myers, & Radcliff,
2005; Ruiter & De Graaf, 2006).
In contrast to survey studies, experimental research
attempting to link religiosity with actual helping in labora-
tory settings has provided less conclusive results. Initially,
Darley and Batson, in his famous recreation of the situation
described in the parable of the Good Samaritan, did not find
any relationship between the participants’ religiosity and
their propensity to help a stranger in need (Darley & Batson,
1973). Some recent laboratory studies using economic game
paradigms, such as the dictator game, have provided some
additional support for Darley and Batson’s results and found
no significant correlations between religiosity and prosocial
acts (Ahmed & Hammarstedt, 2011; Ahmed & Salas, 2011;
Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). In contrast, other studies
using the same experimental settings have detected positive
associations between religiosity and generosity in the dicta-
tor game and cooperative choices in the prisoner’s dilemma
game (Ahmed, 2009; Ben-Ner, Putterman, Kong, & Magan,
2004; Paciotti et al., 2011, Studies 2 and 3; Tan & Vogel,
2008).
To explain these apparent inconsistencies in empirical
findings, some authors have suggested that the prosociality
of religious people is restricted to some conditions, targets,
or types of religiosity (Saroglou, 2006). For example, it has
been proposed that the helpfulness of religious individuals is
restricted to members of their ingroup (Ben-Ner et al., 2009;
Fershtman, Gneezy, & Verboven, 2005; Saroglou, 2006).
Other authors have argued that religious individuals are sub-
missive and obedient; they show prosocial tendencies as
long as their Gods (or the other supernatural agents they
believe in) condone virtue and kindness, and turn aggressive
and vengeful when their Gods authorize aggression and
retaliation (Bushman, Ridge, Das, Key, & Busath, 2007;
Preston et al., 2010). Indeed, priming participants with the
biblical texts that condone violence and aggression has been
shown to promote antisocial behavior (Bushman et al.,
2007), whereas activation of the concepts of faith, angels,
heaven, the soul, blessings, and similar concepts is related to
enhanced prosocial behaviors (Pichon, Boccato, & Saroglou,
2007).
Finally, another attempt to explain the contradictory
results considers religiosity as a more heterogeneous concept
that includes diverse religious orientations from fundamen-
talism to spirituality, and some religious orientations pro-
mote prosocial behaviors, whereas others promote antisocial
behaviors (Allport, 1966; Paciotti et al., 2011).
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religious
Orientations
One of the first and most well-known conceptualizations of
different dimensions of religiosity was proposed by Allport
and Ross (1967). They suggested that individuals may
endorse religion as a means of satisfying personal needs
(seeking comfort or social approval) or as the end-in-itself,
that is, the ultimate motive or the meaning of their lives. The
former is referred to as extrinsic religious orientation, the lat-
ter is referred to as intrinsic religious orientation. In Allport
and Ross’ terms, intrinsically religious individuals “live their
religion”; in contrast, extrinsically oriented religious indi-
viduals use their religion for ulterior purposes.
Extrinsic religiosity has been described as egoistic, self-
serving, instrumental, and dogmatic, whereas intrinsic religi-
osity has often been presented as genuine, interiorized, and
just good (e.g., Donahue, 1985). Indeed, studies have shown
that intrinsic religious orientation correlates positively with
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Stavrova and Siegers 3
prosocial dimensions of personality such as agreeableness
and conscientiousness, while extrinsic orientation shows no
such relation (Henningsgaard & Arnau, 2008). Intrinsically
oriented religious individuals have been shown to be more
likely to volunteer for charities and to demonstrate other types
of altruistic behavior, even in laboratory settings (Chau,
Johnson, Bowers, & Darvill, 1990; Hunsberger & Platonow,
1986; Paciotti et al., 2011). Extrinsic religious orientation, in
contrast, has typically been shown to be either unrelated, or
even negatively related, to prosocial behaviors (Chau et al.,
1990; Hunsberger & Platonow, 1986; Paciotti et al., 2011).
Concurrently, some authors have questioned the underly-
ing altruistic motivation behind the prosociality of intrinsi-
cally religious people (Batson & Flory, 1990; Batson, Floyd,
Meyer, & Winner, 1999; Ji, Pendergraft, & Perry, 2006), and
have even shown intrinsically religious people to be more
predisposed to racial and social prejudice (Batson,
Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993).
It is possible that intrinsic religiosity simply reflects the
full and complete endorsement of religious values, which
typically include both altruism and intolerance of phenom-
ena that threaten the core religious values, such as alternative
forms of family, homosexuality, abortion, gender egalitarian-
ism, and similar phenomena. Indeed, Neyrinck, Lens,
Vansteenkiste, and Soenens (2010) found that intrinsically
religious individuals are more likely to participate in reli-
gious activities because they “fully endorsed religious val-
ues” rather than because they “just enjoy the activities” or
“would feel guilty if they did not participate.” Drawing on
self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), Neyrinck
and colleagues described the religious motivation of intrinsi-
cally religious individuals as “internalized regulation,” that
is, fully accepted and integrated into one’s value system.
According to self-determination theory, internalized regu-
lation of activities or beliefs entails behaviors described as
lying within individuals’ internal locus of causality that are
perceived as self-determined or personally chosen rather
than imposed (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Internalized regulation
thrives in social contexts that provide for individuals’ auton-
omies. Providing choice has been shown to enhance internal-
ized motivation and performance (Patall, Cooper, &
Robinson, 2008; Zuckerman, 1978), whereas imposing con-
trol and surveillance has been linked to decreases in indi-
viduals’ perceptions of autonomy and internal regulation of
activity (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; Lepper & Greene,
1975). For example, students show a greater interest in and a
stronger commitment to tasks that they chose themselves
compared with identical tasks that are chosen for them by the
experimenter (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Patall et al., 2008).
Advertising messages are more effective in persuading con-
sumers if they contain a choice option (Schlosser & Shavitt,
2009). Individuals’ commitments and loyalties to positions
they hold are stronger if they believe they adopted those
positions through personal choice compared with when they
believe those positions were imposed by others (Freedman &
Steinbruner, 1964). Overall, research results from various
domains indicate that individuals are generally more com-
mitted to values that they deem to be personally chosen
rather than socially imposed.
The Present Research
Drawing on the reviewed literature, we propose that the
degree to which personal religiosity represents the result of
individual’s free choice is closely linked to the extent of the
internalization of religious values and determines the strength
of the association between religiosity and prosociality/
morality.
Our reasoning presumes that “religious values” are uni-
versal at their core and do not vary substantially across
religious denominations (Nunner-Winkler, 2010). This pre-
sumption applies not only to prosocial values (in fact, some
evolutionary scientists even view institutionalized religion
as an evolutionary adaptation, as nearly all forms of religion
foster cooperation and therefore group survival; Wilson,
2002) but also to moral convictions. Luckmann (2003)
argues that religion and morality are not distinct in tradi-
tional societies, and Inglehart (1997) has shown that, across
different cultures, religious beliefs are strongly linked to tra-
ditional values such as restrictive moral attitudes, which
include disapproval of homosexuality, divorce, abortion,
and so on.
In the present study, we propose that the degree to which
personal religiosity is a result of an individual’s free choice
versus social enforcement can be inferred from the degree of
social enforcement of religiosity in the respective cultural
context. Psychological and sociological literature on social
norms and sanctions suggests that certain behaviors or attri-
butes are normatively enforced if they are socially desirable,
that is, if their presence is linked to social approval, and
their absence results in social sanctions, such as disapproval
and rejection (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Deutsch &
Gerard, 1955). For example, a country’s average attitudes
toward non-religious individuals, including public figures
or political activists, can reflect the desirability of religiosity
and the probability of social sanctions directed at non-reli-
gious individuals in general. Given these considerations, the
data available, and prior research (Stavrova, Fetchenhauer,
& Schlösser, 2013), to operationalize social enforcement of
religiosity, we used the differences across countries in the
average agreement with the following item: “Politicians
who do not believe in God are unfit for public office”
(answers were given on a 5-point Likert-type scale that
ranged from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”), which
was taken from the most recent applications of the World
Values Survey (WVS; 2009) and the European Values Study
(EVS; 2011). Both survey programs sample approximately
1,000 respondents per country using a two-stage random
sampling procedure, which insures relative representative-
ness of the national samples.
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4 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
This indicator shows large variations across countries.
For example, while only approximately 3% of Swedes see
non-belief as a failing in a politician’s character, approxi-
mately 88% of people in Indonesia do (WVS, 2009; wave 5).
We consider this measure to be particularly suited as an indi-
cator of the degree to which religiosity is socially enforced
for several reasons. First, this measure possesses an impor-
tant attribute of a social norm—an injunctive character
(Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004): it informs us about what a
society thinks one should be like or should believe and is
therefore best suited to make inferences about the degree of
social enforcement. Second, this indicator has good external
validity; it converges with the average agreement with the
idea that religious people are too intolerant (r (31) = .71, p <
.01), with national attitudes toward atheists and non-believ-
ers, r(16) = .62, p < .05,1 and with countries’ average level of
religiosity, r(64) = .74, p < .01.2
We suggest that in countries in which religiosity is socially
enforced, intrinsic motives (in the form of intrinsic religious
orientation) are secondary for developing and sustaining per-
sonal religiosity compared with countries in which individu-
als’ religious beliefs are a matter of one’s personal choice
(Study 1).
Intrinsic religiosity implies a complete endorsement of
religious values. In countries where religiosity is not socially
enforced, we expect religious individuals to be more likely to
show prosocial behaviors (such as charity—Study 2) and
less likely to show antisocial behaviors (such as fraud—
Studies 3 and 4) compared with non-religious individuals. In
contrast, in countries in which religiosity is imposed on
everyone, we expect the role of religiosity in prosociality to
decrease. Ironically, in addition to the stronger link to proso-
cial behavior, a complete endorsement of religious norms
can lead to the condemnation of moral choices that religious
authorities typically deem sinful, such as homosexuality,
abortion, divorce, or suicide (Study 2). Hence, we expect
religious individuals to disapprove of these phenomena more
than non-religious individuals, especially in countries where
religiosity is a matter of personal choice. To summarize, we
expect that decreases in a country’s social enforcement of
religiosity will strengthen both the “bright” and the “dark
side” of personal religiosity.
Study 1
The purpose of Study 1 was to examine whether the associa-
tion between personal religiosity and intrinsic religious ori-
entation depends on the degree of religiosity enforcement in
a country.
The original scale of intrinsic religious orientation
(Allport & Ross, 1967) assesses the degree to which religion
pervades the entire lives of individuals and gives them mean-
ing and direction for their behavior (a sample item is, “My
religious beliefs are really what lie behind my whole
approach to life”; Allport & Ross, 1967). As the original
scale of intrinsic religious orientation has never been incor-
porated in surveys covering a large number of countries, we
referred to a proxy measure of intrinsic religiosity used in the
religion module of the 2008 wave of the International Social
Survey Project (ISSP; 2012). Our measure of intrinsic religi-
osity assesses the degree to which individuals see the mean-
ing of life in their religion and thus closely approximates the
original measure for intrinsic religious orientation.
Method
The ISSP 2008 data include 38 countries (46,481 respon-
dents overall; see Table 1 for a list of countries).
Following the recommendations of religion scholars and
prior research practices (Fetzer, 2003; Koenig, 2001;
Stavrova et al., 2013), we applied a multidimensional mea-
sure of personal religiosity by creating a composite measure
of church attendance and self-description as a religious per-
son. The item wording for church attendance was “How
often do you attend religious services.”3 Answers were given
on an 8-point scale ranging from “never” (1) to “several
times a week” (8). Participants were asked whether they
described themselves as religious persons (on a scale that
ranged from “extremely non-religious” [1] “to extremely
religious” [7]). These items have been proven to be reliable
measures of personal religiosity in cross-cultural analysis
(Wolf, 2006). We z-standardized both measures and con-
structed a scale of personal religiosity by averaging the mea-
sures (Cronbach’s α = .75).
Intrinsic religious orientation was assessed by asking
respondents to indicate the degree of their agreement with the
following statement: “To me, life is meaningful only because
God exists.” Answers were given on a 5-point Likert-type scale
ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5).
To rule out the potential confounds of individuals’ socio-
demographic characteristics and other attributes of their
countries, we controlled for gender, age, employment, and
marital status, individuals’ religious denominations at the
individual level; Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP
per capita), whether the country was formerly a communist
regime and the proportions of members of different world
religions (Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Muslims, and
Eastern religions) at the country level.
To account for the nested structure of the data, our analy-
sis strategy involved estimating a series of multilevel regres-
sion models with random intercepts and random slopes for
personal religiosity.
Results
Model 1 (Table 2) showed that there were significant posi-
tive effects of personal religiosity (b = 0.83, p < .001) and
country’s levels of religious enforcement (b = 0.78, p < .001)
on individuals’ intrinsic religious orientations. That is, intrin-
sic religious orientation was more common among religious
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Stavrova and Siegers 5
Table 1. Participating Countries.
Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 4
Country
Social
enforcement
of religiosity
Intrinsic
religious
orientationa
Charity
membershipb
Condemnation
of liberal
moralitya
Justification
of
lyinga
Frequency
of traffic
offensea
Stolen
goods
purchasingb
Insurance
fraudb
Albania 2.99 — — — −.021 — — —
Andorra 1.79 — .08* .40** — — — —
Argentina 2.63 — — — — — — —
Armenia 3.26 — — — .08** — — —
Australia 2.32 .70*** .13** .41** — — — —
Austria 2.41 .50*** — — −.18*** — — —
Azerbaijan 3.63 — — — .01 — — —
Belarus 2.75 — — — −.04 — — —
Belgium 1.61 .62*** — — −.17*** −.15** −.06** −.05
Bosnia Herzegovina 3.10 — — — −.03 — — —
Brazil 3.33 — .15** .22** — — — —
Bulgaria 2.87 — −.01 .11* −.10*** −.08** .01 .02
Burkina Faso 3.40 — −.05 .10** — — — —
Canada 2.39 — .14** .45** — — — —
Chile 2.66 .31*** .13** .30** — — — —
Croatia 2.70 .45*** — — −.13*** −.10** .001 −.01
Cyprus 3.11 .45*** .11** .23** −.11** −.33** −.13** −.04
Czech Republic 2.14 .71*** — — −.16*** −.09** −.09** −.06**
Denmark 1.46 .58*** — — −.17*** −.08** −.08** −.03
Estonia 2.45 — — — −.12*** −.02 −.03 −.003
Ethiopia 3.37 — .02 .07** — — — —
Finland 2.11 .68*** .15** .41** −.24*** — — —
France 1.70 .77*** .08* .27** −.13*** −.14** −.10** −.06*
Georgia 4.25 — .03 .02 .05 — — —
Germany East 1.83 .65*** .07* .30** −.13*** −.08** −.04 −.03
Germany West 2.35 .61*** .15** .42** −.24*** −.08** −.07** −.01
Ghana 3.92 — −.03 −.01 — — — —
Greece 3.03 — — — −.18*** −.24** −.11** −.04
Guatemala 3.52 — — — — — — —
Hungary 2.32 .56*** — — −.22*** −.10** −.05 −.003
Iceland 1.81 — — — −.14*** — — —
India 3.34 — −.01 .003 — — — —
Indonesia 4.40 — .04 .14** — — — —
Iran 4.01 — .10** .14** — — — —
Iraq 4.53 — — — — — — —
Ireland 2.34 .47*** — — −.29*** −.13** −.10** −.02
Italy 2.37 .62*** .15** .48** −.16*** — — —
Japan 2.63 .43*** .10** .19** — — — —
Jordan 3.95 — — — — — — —
Latvia 2.54 .60*** — — −.16*** — — —
Lithuania 2.58 — — — −.19*** −.18** −.15** −.06*
Luxembourg 1.90 — — — −.14*** — — —
Macedonia 2.94 — — — −.013 — — —
Malaysia 3.83 — — — — — — —
Mali 3.67 — −.05 .21** — — — —
Malta 3.16 — — — −.16*** — — —
Mexico 2.48 .38*** .05 .18** — — — —
Moldova 3.32 — .01 .19** −.08* — — —
(continued)
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6 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
Study 1 Study 2 Study 3 Study 4
Country
Social
enforcement
of religiosity
Intrinsic
religious
orientationa
Charity
membershipb
Condemnation
of liberal
moralitya
Justification
of
lyinga
Frequency
of traffic
offensea
Stolen
goods
purchasingb
Insurance
fraudb
Montenegro 3.03 — — — −.01 — — —
Morocco 3.35 — — — — — — —
Netherlands 1.69 .72*** .14** .35** −.20*** −.12** −.07** −.01
New Zealand 2.24 .71*** — — — — — —
Northern Ireland 2.34 .55*** — — −.22*** — — —
Norway 1.40 .67*** .12** .24** −.17*** −.15** −.09** −.02
Peru 2.80 — — — — — — —
Poland 2.44 .50*** −.06 .37** −.17*** −.19** −.11** −.05*
Portugal 2.41 .51*** — — −.10** −.24** −.05* −.02
Romania 3.51 — .04 .20** −.07 — — —
Russia 2.79 .48*** .05 .14** −.06 −.10** −.04 −.03
Rwanda 3.20 — .07** .01 — — — —
Serbia 3.10 — −.02 .10** −.03 — — —
Slovak republic 2.21 .69*** — — −.19*** −.17** −.05* .01
Slovenia 2.05 .65*** .11** .34** −.15*** −.17** −.07* .01
South Africa 3.33 .09*** .09** .07** — — — —
South Korea 2.51 .61*** −.002 .22** — — — —
Spain 2.14 .53*** .10** .47** −.24*** −.22** −.16** −.04
Sweden 1.69 .64*** .13** .27** −.21*** −.08** −.07** −.05*
Switzerland 2.08 .53*** .05 .41** −.25*** −.17** −.07*** −.01
Taiwan 2.39 .46*** .14** .16** — — — —
Thailand 3.65 — .01 .13** — — — —
Trinidad and Tobago 3.76 — .04 .09** — — — —
Turkey 3.67 .38*** .04 .26** −.03 — — —
UK 2.26 .66*** .11** .36** −.19*** −.11** −.12** −.05*
Ukraine 3.12 .53*** .09* .09* −.09** −.10** .02 .05
Uruguay 2.43 .49*** .13** .31** — — — —
USA 2.58 .52*** .18** .48** — — — —
Vietnam 2.60 — −.06* −.02 — — — —
Zambia 3.50 — .04 .05 — — — —
Note. “—” = no data available.
aPearson’s r with personal religiosity.
bPoint-biserial correlation coefficients with personal religiosity.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Table 1. (continued)
individuals than among less religious individuals, and it was
more common in countries with strong enforcement of reli-
giosity than in countries with weak enforcement of religios-
ity. This result is not surprising because, in countries in
which religiosity enforcement is weak (e.g., Sweden, the
Netherlands, or Denmark), the overall level of religiosity (of
which intrinsic religious orientation is a part) is low. Turning
to the random part of the model, notably, the effect of per-
sonal religiosity on intrinsic religiosity had a significant vari-
ance component (var = 0.039, p < .001), which indicates that
this effect varies substantially across countries.
At the second step (Model 2, Table 2), we tested whether
the association between personal religiosity and intrinsic
religious orientation was shaped by cross-cultural differences
in social enforcement of religiosity. The significant negative
interaction effect between personal religiosity and the coun-
try’s level of enforcement of religiosity (b = −0.29, p < .001)
showed that the effect of personal religiosity on intrinsic reli-
gious orientation decreased with increasing levels of the coun-
try’s enforcement of religiosity. This main result is presented
in Figure 1. Figure 1 shows that in countries with a strong
enforcement of religiosity (one standard deviation above the
mean), the association between religiosity and intrinsic reli-
gious orientation was significantly weaker (b = 0.67, p < .001)
than in countries with a weak enforcement of religiosity (one
standard deviation below the mean; b = 0.97, p < .001).
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Stavrova and Siegers 7
Finally, Model 3 confirms that the cross-level interaction
remained significant even after the control variables at the
individual and national levels were included in the model
(b = −0.27, p < .001).
Overall, these results provide support for our prediction
that in countries in which religiosity is a matter of personal
choice, personal religiosity is more likely to reflect intrinsic
religious orientations compared with countries in which reli-
giosity is socially enforced. That is, in countries where reli-
giosity is not enforced, individuals’ religious beliefs are more
likely to provide them with meaning, ultimate goals, and
direction than in countries in which religiosity is more
normative.
Study 2
In Study 2, we explored whether a country’s enforcement of
religiosity shapes the strength of the associations between
personal religiosity and the degree of adherence to the values
and practices promoted by the following religious tenets:
altruistic behavior and the condemnation of behaviors or
choices that violate the religious moral norms (homosexual-
ity, abortion, divorce, euthanasia, suicide, and prostitution).
In Study 2, we used membership in charitable organizations
as an indicator of prosocial behavior. Drawing on the results
of Study 1, we assumed that the associations between per-
sonal religiosity and the probabilities of membership in
Table 2. Multilevel Regression of Intrinsic Religious Orientation on Personal Religiosity, Study 1.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
B SE B SE B SE
Intercept 2.58*** 0.07 2.58*** 0.07 2.50*** 0.07
Country-level variables
Country’s enforcement of religiosity 0.78*** 0.14 1.02*** 0.16 0.93*** 0.17
GDP per capita — — — — −9e-5 5e-4
Share Catholics — — — — 0.01** 0.003
Share Protestants — — — — 0.01 0.004
Share Orthodox — — — — 0.003 0.004
Share Muslims — — — — 0.01 0.004
Share Eastern — — — — 0.01 0.01
Ex-Communist — — — — −0.25 0.16
Individual-level variables
Age — — — — 0.01*** 0.001
Male — — — — 0.04* 0.02
Employed — — — — −0.07** 0.02
Unemployed — — — — 0.01 0.03
Married — — — — −0.03 0.01
Single — — — — 0.01 0.02
Primary education — — — — 0.10*** 0.02
Secondary education — — — — 0.02 0.02
Personal religiosity 0.83*** 0.03 0.83*** 0.02 0.76*** 0.02
Catholic — — — — 0.10* 0.04
Protestant — — — — 0.18** 0.07
Muslim — — — — 0.69** 0.23
Orthodox — — — — 0.11 0.07
Eastern — — — — −0.09 0.07
Other denominations — — — — 0.32*** 0.07
Personal religiosity × Country’s religiosity
enforcement
−0.29*** 0.07 −0.27*** 0.07
Variance components
Variance (intercept) 0.182 (0.427)*** 0.170 (0.412)*** 0.102 (0.319)***
Variance (personal religiosity) 0.039 (0.202)*** 0.022 (0.149)*** 0.022 (0.147)***
Note. Robust standard errors were used. Personal religiosity is centered around the group mean, all other continuous variables are centered around the
grand mean. Reference categories: employment status–other (housewives, military servants, and similar); marital status–divorced/widowed; education–
tertiary; religious denomination–“no denomination.” The following countries had to be excluded due to missing data on the country’s enforcement of
religiosity: Dominican Republic, Israel, Philippines, and Venezuela. The data from Belgium include only respondents from Flanders. The regions of East
Germany and Northern Ireland were treated as independent samples because their population compositions regarding religious characteristics differ
strongly from those of West Germany and Great Britain, respectively.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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8 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
charitable organizations and, ironically, intolerance of moral
choices prohibited by religious morality (condemnation of
liberal morality) would be stronger in countries in which reli-
gious beliefs and behaviors are a matter of personal choice
rather than imposed by society.
Method
We used data from the most recent wave of the WVS (2009),
which was carried out between 2005 and 2008. The data
include information from 46,859 participants from 46
countries.
Survey respondents were asked to provide information
about their memberships in a range of different organiza-
tions, including charitable or humanitarian organizations.
Respondents who reported being members (active or inac-
tive) of charitable or humanitarian organizations were coded
as “1,” while respondents who did not report such member-
ships were coded as “0.”4
To measure moral attitudes, we used items from the short
version of the Morally Debatable Behaviors Scale that was
included in the survey (Harding & Phillips, 1986; Vauclair &
Fischer, 2011). This short scale assessed respondents’ atti-
tudes toward homosexuality, abortion, divorce, euthanasia,
suicide, and prostitution. This scale has been shown to pos-
sess good psychometric properties (Cronbach’s α = .87) and
cross-cultural invariance (Vauclair & Fischer, 2011).
We measured the personal religiosity in the same manner
as in Study 1.5 Measurement of the scale’s reliability
produced a Cronbach’s α of .62. We included the same control
variables as in Study 1 along with respondents’ income mea-
sured on a scale ranging from 1 (lowest income decile in a
country) to 10 (highest income decile in a country) (which
was not available as a harmonized measure in Study 1).
Results
To explore whether cross-cultural differences in the degree
of religiosity enforcement explain cross-cultural differences
in the relationship between charity membership and religios-
ity, we estimated a multilevel logistic regression (Bernoulli
model) with the probability of being a charity member as the
dependent variable.
Model 1a (Table 3) showed a significant positive effect of
personal religiosity on the probability of charity membership
(eβ = 1.25, p < .001), whereas the effect of living in a country
with a strong enforcement of religiosity was insignificant
(eβ = 0.82, ns). The random components of the model suggest
that there were substantial between-country variations in the
strengths of the effect of personal religiosity on charity mem-
bership (var = 0.039, p < .001).
To account for these variations, in Model 2a, we entered
an interaction term between personal religiosity and the
country’s enforcement of religiosity. The interaction effect
became significant (eβ = 0.91, p < .01), indicating that reli-
gious prosociality was stronger in countries in which religi-
osity is not socially enforced and in which people have a free
choice to be or not to be religious.
Figure 2 presents the relationships between personal reli-
giosity and the probability of being a member of a charitable
organization for countries with different levels of enforce-
ment of religiosity. In countries in which religiosity is not
imposed by the society, such as Norway, Slovenia, and the
United Kingdom, religious individuals were more likely to
be members of charitable organizations than were non-reli-
gious individuals (eβ = 1.33, p < .001). The positive effect of
personal religiosity on the probability of being a member of
a charitable organization was significantly weaker in coun-
tries in which religiosity is socially enforced, such as Turkey,
Thailand, or Mali (eβ = 1.15, p < .001). Finally, in countries
with the highest levels of religiosity enforcement (Indonesia
and Iran), religious individuals were as likely to be members
of charitable organizations as non-religious individuals (eβ =
1.07, p = .35).
Model 3a shows that this effect was robust against multiple
individual- (such as income or gender) and country-level (such
as GDP or dominant religious denominations) characteristics.
Hence, the links between religiosity and prosociality are
especially strong in countries in which religious beliefs are
left to the individual’s free choice. Next, we examined
whether the association between personal religiosity and dis-
approval of behaviors or lifestyles deemed wicked by reli-
gious authorities, such as homosexuality, abortion, and
suicide, depended on a country’s enforcement of religiosity.
-1.64-0.77 0.10 0.97 1.85
0.01
1.15
2.28
3.41
4.55
Intrinsic religious orientation
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Personal religiosity
Figure 1. Personal religiosity and intrinsic religious orientation
in countries with different levels of religiosity enforcement.
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9
Table 3. Multilevel Regressions of the Probabilities of Membership in a Charitable Organization and Condemnation of Liberal Morality on Personal Religiosity, Study 2.
Charity membership Condemnation of liberal morality
Model 1a Model 2a Model 3a Model 1b Model 2b Model 3b
B (SE)eβB (SE)eβB (SE)eβB SE B SE B SE
Intercept −1.37*** (0.11) 0.25 −1.38*** (0.11) 0.25 −0.88*** (0.14) 0.41 7.09*** 0.10 7.09*** 0.10 6.47*** 0.14
Country-level variables
Country’s enforcement of religiosity −0.20 (0.16) 0.82 −0.04 (0.15) 0.95 0.29 (0.21) 1.33 1.42*** 0.11 1.59*** 0.11 1.23*** 0.21
GDP per capita — — — — 7e-6 (9e-6) 1.00 — — — — −2e-4* 9e-6
Share Catholics — — — — 0.002 (0.003) 1.00 — — — — −0.01 0.01
Share Protestants — — — — 0.01 (0.01) 1.01 — — — — 0.004 0.01
Share Orthodox — — — — −0.01 (0.01) 0.99 — — — — 0.003 0.01
Share Muslims — — — — 0.001 (0.01) 1.00 — — — — −0.001 0.004
Share Eastern — — — — 0.01 (0.01) 1.01 — — — — −6e-4 0.004
Ex-Communist — — — — −0.84* (0.37) 0.43 — — — — −0.25 0.40
Individual-level variables
Age — — — — 0.01*** (0.001) 1.01 — — — — 0.01*** 0.002
Male — — — — −0.12** (0.04) 0.88 — — — — 0.10** 0.03
Employed — — — — −0.10** (0.03) 1.11 — — — — −0.11*** 0.03
Unemployed — — — — −0.19** (0.06) 0.83 — — — — −0.07** 0.04
Married — — — — 0.001 (0.04) 1.00 — — — — 0.18*** 0.03
Single — — — — 0.001 (0.05) 1.00 — — — — 0.11** 0.04
Primary education — — — — −0.69*** (0.07) 0.50 — — — — 0.50*** 0.08
Secondary education — — — — −0.42*** (0.04) 0.66 — — — — 0.37*** 0.05
Income — — — — 0.04** (0.01) 1.04 — — — — 0.07*** 0.01
Personal religiosity 0.22*** (0.03) 1.25 0.22*** (0.03) 1.25 0.22*** (0.03) 1.25 0.60*** 0.06 0.59*** 0.05 0.50*** 0.05
Catholic — — — — −0.03 (0.05) 0.97 — — — — −0.24*** 0.06
Protestant — — — — 0.16* (0.07) 1.17 — — — — −0.12* .06
Orthodox — — — — −0.26** (0.09) 0.77 — — — — −0.21* 0.09
Muslim — — — — −0.24 (0.16) 0.79 — — — — 0.05 0.10
Evangelical — — — — 0.14 (0.14) 1.15 — — — — 0.01 0.16
Eastern — — — — −0.01 (0.08) 0.99 — — — — −0.19 0.11
Other denominations — — — — −0.04 (0.05) 0.96 — — — — 0.39*** 0.07
Personal religiosity × Country’s
enforcement of religiosity
— — −0.10** (0.03) .91 −0.11** (0.03) 0.89 — — −.31*** 0.06 −0.24*** 0.06
Variance components
Variance (intercept) 1.227 (1.108)*** 1.215 (1.102)*** 0.728 (0.853)*** 0.517 (0.719)*** 0.502 (0.708)*** 0.455 (0.675)***
Variance (personal religiosity) 0.039 (0.198)*** 0.035 (0.186)*** 0.035 (0.188)*** 0.149 (0.386)*** 0.096 (0.310)*** 0.093 (0.305)***
Note. Population-average model with robust standard errors. Personal religiosity is centered around the group mean, all other continuous variables are centered around the grand mean. Reference categories: employment status–
other (housewives, military servants, and similar); marital status–divorced/widowed; education–tertiary; religious denomination–“no denomination or no response.” The following countries were excluded due to missing values:
religious attendance (Morocco, Malaysia), the country’s enforcement of religiosity (China, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong), membership in charitable organizations (Iraq, Guatemala), moral attitudes (Peru), income and employment
status (Jordan, New Zealand and Argentina); the former East and West Germany were considered as independent samples.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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10 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
-1.44 -0.82 -0.210.4
01
.02
0
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
Personal religiosity
Probabilities of charity membership
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Figure 2. Personal religiosity and membership in charitable
organizations in countries with different levels of religiosity
enforcement.
Model 1b (Table 3) shows that religious individuals and
individuals living in countries that strongly enforce religios-
ity are generally more likely to disapprove of phenomena
condemned by religious doctrines (b = 0.60, p < .001 and b =
1.42, p < .001, respectively). The significant random compo-
nents of the model suggest that the effect of personal religi-
osity on moral attitudes was not culturally universal (var =
0.149, p < .001).
Model 2b showed a significant interaction between per-
sonal religiosity and the country’s religious enforcement (b =
−0.31, p < .001), which suggests that the association between
personal religiosity and disapproval of religiously con-
demned morality was stronger in countries in which religios-
ity is a matter of personal choice than in countries in which it
is normative.
Figure 3 shows that the differences between religious and
non-religious individuals in moral attitudes increases as reli-
giosity becomes a matter of personal choice. In countries that
weakly enforce religiosity, religious individuals were more
likely to condemn liberal moral choices than non-religious
individuals (b = 0.79, p < .001). In contrast, in countries that
strongly enforce religiosity, the effect of personal religiosity
on moral attitudes decreased (b = 0.32, p < .001). In countries
with the highest levels of religiosity enforcement, religious
individuals matched their non-religious counterparts in levels
of disapproval of liberal moral choices (b = 0.10, p < .33).
Finally, Model 3b shows that the interaction effect of per-
sonal religiosity and moral attitudes was robust against multiple
individual- (such as income or gender) and country-level (such
as GDP or dominant religious denominations) characteristics.
In conclusion, Study 2 showed that religious prosocial-
ity was stronger in countries in which religiosity is left to
individuals’ personal choice than in countries in which
religiosity is socially imposed. At the same time, espe-
cially in countries with no enforcement of religiosity, per-
sonal religiosity has the “side-effect” of the condemnation
of religiously disapproved liberal moral choices and
lifestyles.
Study 3
While Study 2 focused on the association between per-
sonal religiosity and prosocial behaviors and moral atti-
tudes, Study 3 extends this focus to antisocial attitudes and
behaviors.
One behavior that is universally condemned by both secu-
lar and religious morality is lying. Lying is part of the
Decalogue of the Old Testament (“you shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor,” 20:16), of the Qur’an (“And
do not mix the truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while
you know,” 2:42), and lying is reflected in the Buddhist
Precepts (“refrain from speaking false speeches”). In Study
3, we examined whether religious individuals were less
likely to justify lying in their own interests, and whether this
association decreased as the levels of the countries enforce-
ment of religiosity increased.
-1.44-0.82 -0.210.4
01
.02
3.11
4.72
6.33
7.94
9.55
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement= Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Condemnation of liberal morality
Personal religiosity
Figure 3. Personal religiosity and condemnation of liberal
morality in countries with different levels of religiosity
enforcement.
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Stavrova and Siegers 11
Method
We used the data from the fourth wave of the EVS (2011),
which was carried out between 2008 and 2010. These data
included 49,517 respondents from 46 Western and Eastern
European countries.
Participants were asked whether lying in one’s own inter-
ests could always be justified, never be justified, or some-
thing in between (answers were given on a scale ranging
from 1 = never to 10 = always). All other measures (includ-
ing personal religiosity [Cronbach’s α = .67], a country’s
enforcement of religiosity and all control variables) were the
same as those in Study 2.
Results
Model 1 (Table 4) showed that, in line with our expectations,
personal religiosity was, on average across countries, nega-
tively associated with the acceptance of lying in one’s own
interest (b = −0.32, p < .001), whereas a country’s enforce-
ment of religiosity was not (b = −0.18, ns). The association
between personal religiosity and the acceptance of lying sig-
nificantly varied across countries (var = 0.032, p < .001).
Model 2 (Table 4) tested whether this variation was attrib-
utable to national levels of enforcement of religiosity by
including a cross-level interaction between personal religios-
ity and each country’s enforcement of religiosity. This model
yielded a positive and significant (b = 0.18, p < .001) interac-
tion effect, meaning that the effect of personal religiosity on
the acceptance of lying in one’s own interest was stronger in
countries in which religious enforcement is weak.
Figure 4 shows that, across countries, lower levels of reli-
gious enforcement produce stronger effects of religiosity on
justifications for lying (b = −0.43, p < .001) compared with
countries in which religiosity is normatively enforced (b =
−0.18, p < .001). Interestingly, in countries with the highest
levels of religiosity enforcement, the difference between reli-
gious and non-religious individuals in justifications for lying
almost disappeared (b = −0.09, p = .08).
Finally, Model 3 showed that the interaction between per-
sonal religiosity and each country’s enforcement of religios-
ity was robust against controlling for other individual- and
country-level characteristics (see Table 4).
In summary, Study 3 showed that the condemnation of
lying in one’s own interest by religious individuals compared
with non-religious individuals was stronger in countries in
which personal religiosity represents a result of one’s per-
sonal choice than in countries in which religiosity is imposed
by the society.
Study 4
In Study 4, we extended our analysis of the justifications of
lying to actual (although self-reported) fraudulent behavior.
We examined whether religious individuals were less likely
to commit different types of fraud, such as insurance fraud
and tax evasion, than non-religious individuals, and whether
this association was moderated by a country’s enforcement
of religiosity.
Method
We used data from the most recent wave of the European
Social Survey (ESS; 2010, Round 5). These data include
information from approximately 43,965 participants from 26
countries.
Participants were asked how many times in the last 5
years they had done the following: (1) made an exaggerated
or false insurance claim, (2) bought something that might be
stolen, and (3) committed a traffic offence. The possible
answers included “never,” “once,” “twice,” “three or four
times,” and “five times or more.” These were the only mea-
sures of fraudulent behaviors available in the survey. As
respondents’ answers to these three questions were quite
poorly correlated (between r = .08 and r = .25), we analyzed
each question separately.
With respect to insurance fraud and buying stolen goods,
the distribution of the respondents’ answers was extremely
skewed; on average, 97.2% and 93.3% of our sample reported
never having committed insurance fraud and never having
bought stolen goods, respectively (insurance fraud: skewe-
ness = 9.31, SE = .01; stolen goods: skeweness = 5.65, SE =
.01). To account for these distribution peculiarities, we
dichotomized both variables (“1” refers to those who had
committed fraud at least once and “0” to all other cases). In
the subsequent analyses, both variables were treated as
binary outcomes in a multilevel logistic regression. In con-
trast, the frequency of traffic offenses was less skewed (i.e.,
on average, 55.3% of people reported never having commit-
ted a traffic offence in the last 5 years; skeweness = 0.87, SE
= .01). Therefore, we treated this variable as continuous and
used it in a multilevel linear regression analysis.
To measure personal religiosity, we followed the same
procedure as in Study 1. Examination of the scale’s reliabil-
ity revealed a Cronbach’s α of .78. All other measures
(including the country’s enforcement of religiosity and all
control variables) were the same as those in Studies 2 and 3.
Results
The results of a multilevel regression analysis (Models 1,
Table 5) showed significant negative effects of personal reli-
giosity on the probability of fraudulent behavior (insurance
fraud: eβ = 0.88, p < .01; buying stolen goods: eβ = 0.72, p <
.001), and on the frequency of traffic offenses (b = −0.22, p
< .001). The effects of the country’s enforcement of religios-
ity were insignificant for insurance fraud and the buying of
stolen goods (eβ = 1.11, ns and eβ = 1.18, ns, respectively)
and negative for the frequency of traffic offenses (b = −0.72,
p < .01). The random components of the models suggest
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12 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
substantial between-country variations in the strengths of the
relationship between religiosity and fraudulent behavior
(insurance fraud: var = 0.034, p < .001; buying stolen goods:
var = 0.054, p < .001; traffic offense: var = 0.007, p < .001).
Model 2 indicated that the effect of personal religiosity on
fraudulent behavior is significantly moderated by the coun-
try’s enforcement of religiosity (insurance fraud: eβ = 1.36, p
< .01; buying stolen goods: eβ = 1.36, p < .01; traffic offense:
b = 0.07, p < .05). The negative association between personal
religiosity and fraudulent behaviors was stronger in coun-
tries that do not pressure individuals to follow a religion
compared with countries in which religiosity is socially
enforced. Model 3 shows that the interaction effect of per-
sonal religiosity and the country’s enforcement of religiosity
became somewhat weaker in the case of insurance fraud and
the buying of stolen goods after entering control variables,
but this effect remained generally robust (insurance fraud: eβ
= 1.25, p < .10; buying stolen goods: eβ = 1.27, p < .05; traffic
offense: b = 0.09, p < .01).
Figures 5, 6, and 7 show how the associations between
personal religiosity and fraudulent behaviors are shaped by
the country’s level of enforcement of religiosity. In countries
in which religious beliefs and behavior are a matter of per-
sonal choice, religious individuals were less likely to commit
insurance fraud, traffic offenses or to buy stolen goods than
non-religious individuals (insurance fraud: eβ = .71, p < .001;
buying stolen goods: eβ = .61, p < .001; traffic offense: b =
−0.26, p < .001). In countries in which religious beliefs and
behaviors are socially enforced, the moral superiority of reli-
gious individuals compared with their non-religious
Table 4. Multilevel Regression of Lying in One’s Own Interest on Personal Religiosity, Study 3.
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
B SE B SE B SE
Intercept 2.56*** 0.08 2.56*** 0.08 2.61*** 0.09
Country-level variables
Country’s enforcement of religiosity −0.18 0.11 −0.38*** 0.12 −0.69** 0.22
GDP per capita — — — — −6e-6 4e-6
Share Catholics — — — — −0.01* 0.002
Share Protestants — — — — −0.01*** 0.002
Share Orthodox — — — — −0.001 0.004
Share Muslims — — — — −0.01 0.01
Ex-Communist — — — — 0.01 0.16
Individual-level variables
Age — — — — −0.02*** 0.001
Male — — — — 0.19*** 0.03
Employed — — — — 0.01 0.03
Unemployed — — — — 0.08 0.06
Married — — — — −0.19*** 0.03
Single — — — — 0.08** 0.03
Primary education — — — — 0.01 0.05
Secondary education — — — — −0.03 0.03
Income — — — — 0.02* 0.01
Personal religiosity −0.32*** 0.03 −0.32*** 0.02 −0.22*** 0.03
Catholic — — — — 0.04 0.05
Protestant — — — — −0.12* 0.05
Muslim — — — — −0.27 0.22
Orthodox — — — — −0.04 0.11
Other denominations — — — — −0.35*** 0.08
Personal religiosity × Country’s
enforcement of religiosity
— — 0.18*** 0.03 0.13*** 0.03
Variance components
Variance (intercept) 0.305 (0.552)*** 0.288 (0.356)*** 0.273 (0.523)***
Variance (personal religiosity) 0.032 (0.180)*** 0.018 (0.136)*** 0.011 (0.107)***
Note. Robust standard errors were used. Personal religiosity is centered around the group mean, all other continuous variables are centered around the
grand mean. Reference categories: employment status–other (housewives, military servants, and similar); marital status–divorced/widowed; for education–
tertiary; religious denomination–“no denomination.” The following countries were excluded due to missing values: Northern Cyprus (self-identification as
a religious person), Kosovo (GDP).
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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Stavrova and Siegers 13
counterparts was considerably weakened or absent (insurance
fraud: eβ = 0.95, p =.54; buying stolen goods: eβ = 0.81, p <
.01; traffic offenses: b = −0.18, p < .001).
General Discussion
In this research, we examined whether the widely supported
belief that religious individuals are more prosocial than non-
religious individuals (the so-called religious prosociality
hypothesis) holds across countries. Using data from over 70
countries, we tested the cultural universality of the religious
prosociality hypothesis with respect to a variety of prosocial
and antisocial behaviors that ranged from membership in
charitable organizations to insurance fraud. Our results sug-
gest that, on average, religious individuals were more likely
to be members of charitable organizations, less likely to jus-
tify lying in their own interest, and less likely to have com-
mitted insurance fraud or traffic offenses compared with
non-religious peers. However, there are cultural contexts in
which these prosocial effects of religiosity are considerably
weaker or even absent, i.e., countries with strong social
enforcement of religiosity. Across four studies, we found that
the prosocial effects of individuals’ religiosity were consis-
tently stronger in countries in which religious behavior is a
matter of personal choice compared with countries in which
religious behavior is imposed by social norms. These results
held for the effect of religiosity on behavior that benefited
others (charity participation in Study 2), condemnation of
egoistic behaviors (lying in one’s own interests in Study 3),
and fraudulent behaviors (insurance fraud, the experience of
buying stolen goods and traffic offenses in Study 4). In other
words, in countries in which religiosity is a “must” (such as
Georgia or Indonesia), religious individuals are not more
likely to participate in charities, and are no less likely to jus-
tify lying and to commit fraud than non-religious
individuals.
Why does religious prosociality thrive in social contexts
that are freed from religious enforcement? We explain this
effect in terms of self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci,
2000). Self-determination theory states that contexts that
allow for the freedom of choice and the fostering of individu-
als’ autonomy enhance intrinsic motivation and internaliza-
tion of values. In other words, individuals are more strongly
committed to their values if they believe those values to be
personally chosen rather than socially imposed. Drawing on
this argument, we proposed that the commitment to religious
values is strengthened in contexts that allow for the freedom
of choice. When individuals are free to choose whether to
follow a religion, their personal religious choices are charac-
terized by stronger commitments and a stronger intrinsic ori-
entations than when religious beliefs are imposed on them in
the form of social norms. Our analyses support this assump-
tion; in countries in which religiosity is left to one’s own
choice (like most Scandinavian countries), religious identifi-
cations and practices are more likely to be associated with
intrinsic religious orientations (i.e., commitments to religion
as the meaning of life and ends in themselves) than they are
in countries in which religiosity is socially imposed (Study
1). That is, cultural contexts that allow for the freedom to be
non-religious promote the prosociality of religious individu-
als by enhancing their intrinsic religious orientations and
their commitments to religious values in general.
Ironically, religious values are not restricted to the ulti-
mate virtues, such as honesty and concern for others; they
tend to prescribe more questionable moral norms, such as the
disapproval of non-traditional sexual morality (which may,
but not necessarily, result in prejudice and the stigmatization
of certain minority groups). Consequently, the positive
effects of the absence of enforced religiosity in cultural con-
texts on religious individuals’ prosocial tendencies might
have a flip side; the absence of religiosity enforcement might
increase the effect of religiosity on the condemnation of lib-
eral moral choices. Indeed, our analysis (Study 2) showed
that at low levels of national enforcement of religiosity (e.g.,
in Scandinavian countries), religious individuals strongly
exceeded their non-religious counterparts in their disap-
proval of moral choices and behaviors condemned by their
religions, such as homosexuality, abortion, or prostitution. At
high levels of religiosity enforcement, this difference was
considerably weaker.
The present research is not without limitations. First,
due to data availability issues, our analyses of the relation-
ship between the nature of personal religiosity and cultural
-1.41 -0.74 -0.07 0.59 1.26
1.91
2.37
2.83
3.29
3.75
Justification of lying
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Personal religiosity
Figure 4. Personal religiosity and justification for lying in one’s
own interest in countries with different levels of religiosity
enforcement.
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14
Table 5. Multilevel Regressions of Fraudulent Behaviors on Personal Religiosity, Study 4.
Insurance fraud Bought stolen goods Frequency of traffic offenses
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
B (SE)eβB (SE)eβB (SE)eβB (SE)EβB (SE)eβB (SE)eβB (SE)B (SE)B (SE)
Intercept −3.51*** (0.09) 0.03 −3.57*** (0.08) 0.03 −4.30*** (0.15) 0.01 −2.64*** (0.09) 0.07 −2.67*** (0.08) 0.07 −3.24*** (0.12) 0.04 2.28*** (0.08) 2.28*** (0.08) 1.94*** (0.11)
Country-level variables
Country’s
enforcement of
religiosity
0.11 (0.23) 1.11 0.48** (0.13) 1.62 0.21 (0.45) 1.23 0.18 (0.12) 1.18 0.37* (0.16) 1.45 −0.15 (0.31) 0.86 −0.72** (0.20) −0.66** (0.20) −0.91** (0.24)
GDP per capita — — — — −2e-4 (1e-5) 0.99 — — — — −3e-5* (1e-6) 0.99 — — −3e-6 (7e-6)
Share Catholics — — — — −0.01 (0.01) 0.99 — — — — −0.01 (0.004) 0.99 — — 0.01 (0.003)
Share Protestants — — — — −0.003 (0.01) 0.99 — — — — −0.01 (0.01) 0.99 — — 0.02** (0.004)
Share Orthodox — — — — −0.01 (0.01) 0.99 — — — — −0.01 (0.01) 0.99 — — 0.02* (0.01)
Share Muslims — — — — 0.06 (0.04) 1.06 — — — — 0.01 (0.03) 1.01 −0.04 (0.02)
Ex-Communist 0.16 (0.14) 1.18 −0.11 (0.14) 0.90 — — −0.28* (0.10)
Individual-level variables
Age — — — — −0.02*** (0.002) 0.98 — — — — −0.03*** (0.004) 0.97 — — −0.01*** (0.001)
Male — — — — 0.52*** (0.06) 1.68 — — — — 0.71*** (0.06) 2.04 — — 0.57*** (0.06)
Employed — — — — 0.45*** (0.11) 1.57 — — — — 0.37*** (0.07) 1.45 — — 0.45*** (0.07)
Unemployed — — — — 0.52* (0.21) 1.67 — — — — 0.54*** (0.08) 1.72 — — 0.21*** (0.04)
Married — — — — −0.11 (0.09) 0.90 — — — — −0.25*** (0.07) 0.78 — — −0.01 (0.03)
Single — — — — −0.52** (0.17) 0.59 — — — — −0.16 (0.18) 0.85 — — −0.20*** (.05)
Years of education — — — — 0.03*** (0.01) 1.03 — — — — −0.01† (0.01) 0.99 — — 0.06*** (0.01)
Incomea— — — — 0.12 (0.08) 1.13 — — — — −0.13* (0.06) 0.88 — — 0.10*** (0.01)
Personal religiosity −0.13** (0.04) 0.88 −0.21*** (0.04) 0.82 −0.09 (0.06) 0.91 −0.33*** (0.07) 0.72 −0.37*** (0.05) 0.69 −0.06 (0.07) 0.94 −0.22*** (0.03) −0.22*** (0.02) −0.10*** (0.01)
Catholic — — — — −0.02 (0.16) 0.98 — — — — −0.38*** (0.10) 0.68 — — 0.02 (0.04)
Protestant — — — — −0.16 (0.11) 0.85 — — — — −0.38* (0.18) 0.68 — — 0.13* (0.06)
Muslim — — — — −0.90* (0.45) 0.40 — — — — −0.55 (0.40) 0.92 — — −0.36*** (0.08)
Orthodox — — — — 0.40*** (0.08) 1.50 — — — — −0.08 (0.14) 0.58 — — 0.08* (0.04)
Other
denominations
— — — — 0.44* (0.22) 1.56 — — — — −0.56* (0.28) 0.57 — — 0.09 (0.09)
Personal religiosity
× Country’s
enforcement of
religiosity
— — 0.31** (0.11) 1.36 0.22† (0.13) 1.25 — — 0.30** (0.10) 1.36 0.24* (0.08) 1.27 — 0.07* (0.03) 0.09** (0.02)
Variance components
Variance (intercept) 0.304*** (0.551) 0.253*** (0.503) 0.210*** (0.459) 0.175*** (0.418) 0.166*** (0.408) 0.061*** (0.248) 0.117*** (0.342) 0.116*** (0.341) 0.043*** (0.207)
Variance (personal
religiosity)
0.034** (0.185) 0.014 (0.119) 0.019 (0.138) 0.054*** (0.232) 0.036*** (0.188) 0.023*** (0.151) 0.007*** (0.082) 0.006*** (0.075) 0.001*** (0.038)
Note. Population-average model with robust standard errors. Personal religiosity is centered around the group mean, all other continuous variables are centered around the grand mean. Reference categories: employment status—
other (housewives, military servants, and similar); marital status—divorced/widowed; religious denomination— “no denomination.” The population and design weights were used (European Social Survey, 2013). Israel was excluded
due to missing values on the measure of the enforcement of religiosity. Robust standard errors were used.
aRespondents were asked whether they lived comfortably on their present income, were coping on their present income, were finding it difficult on their present income, or were finding it very difficult on their present income
(treated as a continuous variable).
†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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Stavrova and Siegers 15
contexts (Study 1) was restricted to intrinsic religious ori-
entations. We argued (and empirically demonstrated) that
in countries with weak enforcement of religiosity, personal
religiosity is more strongly guided by intrinsic religious
orientation than in countries with strong religious enforce-
ment. An interesting extension of this analysis would be to
examine the relative importance of intrinsic vs. extrinsic
religious orientations as a function of the country’s reli-
gious enforcement. We can assume that in countries that
weakly enforce religiosity, individuals’ intrinsic religious
orientations are more relevant than their extrinsic religious
orientations. It should be mentioned that testing this hypoth-
esis would require cross-culturally reliable scales of intrin-
sic and extrinsic religiosity, which are yet to be developed
and tested (Cohen, Hall, Koenig, & Meador, 2005).
Second, one might suspect that our results are due to a
methodological artifact; for example, the smaller effects of
personal religiosity in countries with strong religious
enforcements might be attributable to reduced variance in the
personal religiosity in these countries. However, our results
show that countries with strong enforcements of religiosity
are not necessarily those with the smallest variability in per-
sonal religiosity; the correlations between a country’s vari-
ance in personal religiosity and the enforcement of religiosity
enforcement were (with the exception of Study 2) small and
non-significant (Study 1: r = .14, ns; Study 2: r = −.63, p <
.01.; Study 3: r = .04, ns; Study 4: r = −.20, ns). In addition,
if the effects we report were driven by the variance reduction
explanation, the relationship between personal religiosity
and any other outcome would have followed the same
1.99
2.21
2.43
2.64
2.86
Traffic offense
-1.31-0.41 0.49 1.38 2.28
Country's religiosity enforcement= Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = -1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = +1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Personal religiosity
Figure 5. Personal religiosity and frequency of traffic offence in
countries with different levels of religiosity enforcement.
-1.32 -0.41 0.49 1.40 2.31
0.020
0.040
Probabilities of insurance fraud
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Personal religiosity
Figure 6. Personal religiosity and probabilities of insurance fraud
in countries with different levels of religiosity enforcement.
-1.32-0.41 0.49 1.40 2.31
0.020
0.040
0.060
0.080
0.100
0.120
Probabilities of buying stolen goods
Country's religiosity enforcement = Min
Country's religiosity enforcement = - 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Mean
Country's religiosity enforcement = + 1 SD
Country's religiosity enforcement = Max
Personal religiosity
Figure 7. Personal religiosity and probabilities of buying stolen
goods in countries with different levels of religiosity enforcement.
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16 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin XX(X)
pattern as in our studies. However, recent cross-national
studies (Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011; Eichhorn, 2012;
Stavrova et al., 2013) that partially used the same data as the
present research suggest the existence of other patterns with
other dependent variables (e.g., happiness). Taken together,
these results suggest that our findings can not merely be due
to a methodological artifact.
Finally, the opponents of the religious prosociality
hypothesis often claim that religious individuals are simply
more likely to provide socially desirable responses and
therefore appear more prosocial in survey results (for a
review, see Galen, 2012). Given that our conclusions are
based on analyses of self-reported measures of prosocial
and antisocial behaviors and attitudes, this argument requires
serious consideration. Could this argument provide an alter-
native explanation to our findings? As our analyses did not
focus on the main effects of religiosity, but rather on the
interaction of religiosity and national religious contexts, our
findings cannot merely be the result of a confound with
social desirability. In addition, prior research has shown
that, especially in religious countries, religious individuals
show stronger predispositions for socially desirable
responses than non-religious individuals (Sedikides &
Gebauer, 2010). That is, if the greater prosociality of reli-
gious individuals was a result of their socially desirable
responding, we would have found religious individuals to be
more prosocial in religious rather than in secular contexts.
This is the opposite of what our results showed. Nevertheless,
because much of the current debate about the prosocial
effects of religiosity has been fuelled by divergent findings
from self-reported and actual behavioral data, studies mea-
suring the actual prosocial behavior of religious and non-
religious individuals in countries with different levels of
religiosity enforcement should be conducted.
How do our results advance the current scientific discus-
sion surrounding the religious prosociality hypothesis
(Galen, 2012; Myers, 2012; Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008;
Saroglou, 2012)? First, our research adds a boundary con-
dition that specifies the contexts in which religious proso-
ciality exists and in which it does not; i.e., boundaries based
on each country’s social enforcement of religiosity. We also
showed that this feature of a country’s religious climate not
only shapes religious prosociality but also influences the
effect of religiosity on the condemnation of moral choices
and lifestyles deemed sinful by religious authorities.
Specifically, low religious enforcement contexts enhance
the propensity of religious individuals to fully endorse and
internalize the principles of their religions, including both
prosociality and disapproval of perpetrators of religious
values. Together, these findings indicate that religious indi-
viduals seem to be committed to prosocial values and
behaviors as long as their religious doctrines deem those
values morally correct (also, see Preston et al., 2010, for a
discussion).
Second, our results inform the discussion of the potential
relationship between the increased prosociality of religious
people and the stereotypes that present religious people more
favorably than atheists (Galen, 2012). Atheists and non-
believers are often considered to be untrustworthy and mean
(Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan, 2011), whereas religious
individuals are commonly judged as virtuous and fair (de
Dreu, Yzerbyt, & Leyens, 1995; Miller & Bornstein, 2006).
Galen (2012) has recently proposed that these stereotypes of
believers and atheists might work as a self-fulfilling proph-
ecy; when most people consider non-believers to be egoistic
and untrustworthy, the non-believers end up more egoistic
and untrustworthy than their religious peers. If this was true,
then, in countries with strong anti-atheist stereotypes, we
would have found non-believers to be more unethical and
egoistic (compared to religious individuals). Ironically, our
results showed the opposite; in countries in which societal
beliefs do not tie religiosity to superior morality, religious
individuals are, against expectations, more likely to show
prosocial behaviors than non-religious individuals. Hence,
religious prosociality cannot be a reflection of society’s ste-
reotypes of religious and non-religious people.
Third, some prior research (Ben-Ner et al., 2009;
Fershtman et al., 2005) has argued that the prosociality of
religious individuals is mainly directed at their ingroup—
other religious individuals. From this perspective, one might
assume that religious prosociality should be even stronger in
religious countries, where the likelihood of benefiting the
ingroup through good deeds is obviously higher than that in
less religious countries. However, our findings are at odds
with this “ingroup hypothesis”: especially in countries where
religiosity is normative, religious individuals are not more
prosocial than their non-religious counterparts.
Overall, our results suggest that religious prosociality is
unlikely to be a mere reflection of society’s stereotypes,
social desirability, or ingroup favoritism. However, our find-
ings indicate that the association between religiosity and pro-
sociality is, in some sense, a reflection of societal processes.
Country-level religiosity enforcement shapes religious moti-
vation (the nature of one’s religious orientation) and, conse-
quently, the link between religiosity and prosociality, which
is turned on when enforcement is weak and off when it is
strong (also see Saroglou, 2012).
Last, a fruitful direction for future research might be to
complement our studies with longitudinal analyses.
Specifically, deeper insight could be gained by examining
how changes in religiosity enforcement over time shape the
prosociality and morality of religious and non-religious indi-
viduals. Based on the present findings, we can speculate that
a steady decline in religiosity enforcement might not only
enhance the prosociality of religious individuals but also
non-religious individuals’ support of liberal moral choices.
At a broader level, this research provides an example of
how differences in a cultural context can be used to uncover
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Stavrova and Siegers 17
the mechanisms behind psychological phenomena, such as
religious prosociality. We used a country’s enforcement of
religiosity as an indicator of the degree to which the choice to
endorse a religion was personally driven versus socially
imposed. This feature of a country’s cultural context deter-
mines the strength of religious prosociality; religious proso-
ciality was especially pronounced in countries in which
religious ways of life are a matter of each individual’s personal
choice and was considerably weakened or even non-existent
in countries in which religiosity is enforced. Paradoxically, the
more freedom people have to choose not to believe, the stron-
ger is the prosociality of those who chose to believe.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. The respective items were taken from the International Social
Survey Project (ISSP; 2012) data set. The participants were
asked whether they agreed that religious people are too intoler-
ant (5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly agree
to 5 = strongly disagree) and about their personal attitudes
toward atheists and non-believers (5-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 = very positive to 5 = very negative).
2. Because a country’s average level of religiosity can be used
as an indicator of the country’s descriptive norm of religios-
ity (Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011; Stavrova, Fetchenhauer, &
Schlösser, 2013), we additionally conducted all of the analyses
using a country’s average level of religiosity as a moderator
while controlling for religiosity enforcement as well as all other
individual- and country-level characteristics used in the main
analyses. These analyses showed average religiosity to be a sig-
nificant moderator of the association between personal religios-
ity and only two (out of seven) dependent variables: intrinsic
religious orientation (b = −0.27, p < .001) and charity member-
ship (b = −0.18, p = .02). Therefore, a country’s enforcement of
religiosity explains the variation in the slope of personal religi-
osity more consistently across the dependent variables than does
a country’s level of religiosity, which we explain by the stronger
“injunctive” nature of the former.
3. In the ISSP and the surveys used in Studies 2 to 4, culture-spe-
cific question wording was partially applied. For details, see the
study documentation (ISSP, 2012).
4. Church and religious organizations were listed separately.
Therefore, members of religious charities might have indicated
involvement in both religious and charitable organizations.
5. The difference from Study 1 is that World Values Survey applies
a categorical measure of personal identification as a religious
person (respondents were asked whether they described them-
selves as a “religious person” [coded as “1”] or a non-religious
person or atheist [coded as “0”]).
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