Test cheater? Depends on your view of God
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By Sarah Pulliam Bailey for USA TODAY
Hell has been on fire this spring as many Christians rekindled the debate over whether it exists and if so, who goes there.
Earlier this spring, megachurch pastor Rob Bell's Love Wins book ignited a discussion over whether a loving God could send Gandhi to hell and Osama bin Laden's death rekindled the question.
One's view of hell might stem from a belief in a loving, forgiving God or in a vengeful, punishing God, and those beliefs about God could predict whether a student is more likely to cheat on a test. Azim Shariff, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, co-published a study recently that found that students who see God as vengeful or punishing were less likely to cheat than those who saw God as more loving or forgiving.
"It matters not as much whether you believe in God but what kind of God you believe," Shariff said. "This gives us some information about what the active ingredient in religion is for predicting normative behavior."
The study, "Mean Gods Make Good People: Different Views of God Predict Cheating Behavior," found no difference between the ethical behavior of those who believe in God and those who do not, consistent with earlier research. However, the researchers found a difference in behavior among those who do believe in God.
As part of the study, undergraduates took a math test on a computer that contained a software glitch. If they did not press the space bar after reading the questions, the glitch would pop up the correct answer on the screen. Students were then asked about their perceptions of God, and the findings were published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion.
The study's findings could parallel research from other fields from the past. For instance, societies with greater rate of belief in hell had stronger economies, Harvard economists Robert Barro and Rachel McCleary found in a 2006 study.
Or beliefs about God might parallel research on parenting. Researchers in 1991 found that children whose parents are characterized as authoritarian score better on obedience and conformity. On the other hand, children of indulgent parents show stronger self-confidence but report higher substance abuse and misconduct at school.
Beliefs about a concrete hell (or one's potential of going there) could impact anxiety over the idea of death. A 2009 study in Mental Health, Religion & Culture suggested that Christians experience lower anxiety about death than non-religious and Muslim groups, and Muslims scored significantly higher than the non-religious group.
Shariff says the next step is to test the opposite conclusion: whether people who hold certain views of God are more likely to be more cooperative or generous. Shariff co-published an experiment in Science magazine in 2008 that suggested that people who tended toward religious belief were more likely to be generous to strangers.
He says that either way people will twist the findings to their own conclusion.
"I try not to read the comments on websites anymore because you always get the same debate," Shariff said. "It's these rabid atheists or apologists who ignore the research and default to their own opinions."
What do you take away from this study? Do the findings surprise you?
