Priming for Prosociality: Religious Signaling in Online Crowdfunding

• In Event: 2329 - Section on the Sociology of Religion Referred Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. Religion and Identity in Context

Abstract

As social interactions increasingly become exclusively online, there is a need for research on the role of religious culture in the establishment of identity in online platforms. Drawing on Signaling Theory and Religious Priming, this study argues that actors will selectively use religious language to signal their credentials to an audience for the purpose of garnering prosocial behavior in the form of donations to their fundraising campaign. Using latent semantic analysis topic models to analyze the self-presentations of crowdsourcing campaigners on GoFundMe.com, this study found evidence for the presence of religious signaling online as well as a significant difference in the presentation of need for campaigns originating in areas with high reported religiosity compared to campaigns from areas of low religiosity and between those campaigns including religious signaling and campaigns that did not. In comparison to other campaigns, campaigners engaging in religious signaling were significantly increasing their donations and increasing their potential donor pool. I suggest that strategically chosen religious topics in online crowdfunding is an example of low-cost religious signaling and provides insight into how signaling happens online and the potential outcomes resulting from this cultural work.

Author

• Scott James Hamilton, University of North Texas