Poster #50 - Ugandan Children’s Perceptions of God and Punitive Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

In cultures around the world, belief systems, in particular religious beliefs, have profound influence on social decision-making and structure. Of particular interest to social psychologists studying religion has been the potential relationship between religiosity and punitive attitudes and behaviors. At a national level, research has demonstrated a negative correlation between average levels of belief in hell (eternal punishment) and crime rates, while at the individual level, religious adults tend to be more punitive than non-religious adults (Laurin et al., 2012). This work also demonstrated that the specific belief in a powerful and intervening God is correlated with reductions in punishment, a finding that is interpreted as an “outsourcing” of punishment to God and that aligns with cultural evolutionary theories of religion (Norenzayan & Shariff, 2008).
A question that has received considerably less attention in empirical research is how these perceptions of God’s punitive nature are socialized over development and, in particular, how children are acquiring these views in early childhood. By age four, children show a tendency to view God’s mind as distinct from their own mind (Wolle et al., 2021) but make different assumptions than adults do about what God knows (e.g., Richert & Barrett, 2005; Purzycki et al., 2012). Accordingly, children might also alter their behavior based on beliefs about God, and may do so in one of two ways: outsourcing or imitation. The first possibility emerges from the effects documented in Laurin et al. and would imply that children, like adults, are less inclined to punish because they view God as responsible for punishment. The second possibility, deriving from previous work showing that young children imitate normative behavior from exemplars (e.g., Bandura, 1977; Blake et al., 2016), suggests that if children view God as punitive they would be more inclined to punish.
In the current study, we tested between these two hypotheses using a modified third-party punishment game with Ugandan children (N = 120). Participants were given the opportunity to engage in costly punishment after learning about a neutral (guarding of resources) or antisocial (theft of resources) behavior between four pairs of children in subsequent trials. Participants were asked a question about God’s punitive nature before or after engaging in the punishment task, yielding a rating score of God as punitive or non-punitive on a six-point scale.
In accordance with our preregistered analysis plan, we will test between two competing hypotheses as described above: the outsourcing punishment hypothesis and the imitation of punishment hypothesis. We will run a generalized linear mixed model with probability of punishment as the dependent variable and children’s rating of God as a punitive agent as a predictor. A significant positive effect of children’s rating will provide evidence for the modeling punishment hypothesis and a significant negative effect will provide evidence for the outsourcing punishment hypothesis. The findings from this study have the potential to expand our current understanding of how perceptions of God’s mind emerge over development and how these perceptions may interact with a growing proclivity to engage in prosocial punishment.

Authors

• Abby McLaughlin, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Sophie Riddick, Boston College

• Katherine McAuliffe, Boston College

• Aaron Baker