Does religion improve behavior?

[Zzyzx]

.

Being religious does not make you better behaved, researchers have found.

A new study found 'no significant difference' in the number or quality of moral and immoral deeds made by religious and non-religious participants. 

The researchers found only one difference - Religious people responded with more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds.

To learn how people experience morality and immorality in everyday life, the researchers surveyed more than 1,200 adults, aged 18 to 68, via smartphone. 
For three days, the demographically diverse group of U.S. and Canadian citizens received five signals daily, prompting them to deliver short answers to a questionnaire about any moral or immoral act they had committed, received, witnessed or heard about within the last hour. 

In addition to the religion variable, the researchers also looked at moral experience and political orientation, as well as the effect moral and immoral occurrences have on an individual's happiness and sense of purpose. 

The study found that religious and nonreligious people differed in only one way: How moral and immoral deeds made them feel

Religious people responded with stronger emotions – more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds. 

The study also found little evidence for a morality divide between political conservatives and liberals. 

'Our findings are important because they reveal that even though there are some small differences in the degree to which liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral priorities, the moral priorities they have are more similar than different,' Skitka said. Both groups are very concerned about issues such as harm/care, fairness/unfairness, authority/subversion and honesty/dishonesty, she said. 

'By studying how people themselves describe their moral and immoral experiences, instead of examining reactions to artificial examples in a lab, we have gained a much richer and more nuanced understanding of what makes up the moral fabric of everyday experience,' Skitka said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... uilty.html

Do you agree or disagree with the bold items above? Why?

[Vanguard]

Being religious does not make you better behaved, researchers have found.

A new study found 'no significant difference' in the number or quality of moral and immoral deeds made by religious and non-religious participants. 

The researchers found only one difference - Religious people responded with more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds.

To learn how people experience morality and immorality in everyday life, the researchers surveyed more than 1,200 adults, aged 18 to 68, via smartphone. 
For three days, the demographically diverse group of U.S. and Canadian citizens received five signals daily, prompting them to deliver short answers to a questionnaire about any moral or immoral act they had committed, received, witnessed or heard about within the last hour. 

In addition to the religion variable, the researchers also looked at moral experience and political orientation, as well as the effect moral and immoral occurrences have on an individual's happiness and sense of purpose. 

The study found that religious and nonreligious people differed in only one way: How moral and immoral deeds made them feel

Religious people responded with stronger emotions – more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds. 

The study also found little evidence for a morality divide between political conservatives and liberals. 

'Our findings are important because they reveal that even though there are some small differences in the degree to which liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral priorities, the moral priorities they have are more similar than different,' Skitka said. Both groups are very concerned about issues such as harm/care, fairness/unfairness, authority/subversion and honesty/dishonesty, she said. 

'By studying how people themselves describe their moral and immoral experiences, instead of examining reactions to artificial examples in a lab, we have gained a much richer and more nuanced understanding of what makes up the moral fabric of everyday experience,' Skitka said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... uilty.html

Do you agree or disagree with the bold items above? Why?

Taking the study at face value and giving it the benefit of the doubt, I'm mildly surprised. I would have reflexively thought the opposite. It reminds me of how the Christian message has become distorted from what I believe should have been the message all along - that being, belief in the Christian God should make that individual better than he would have been had he not become such. I'm ok that the position cannot be falsified. The Christian message never should have been championed as a benefit that could easily be measured within the populace.

I am reminded of CS Lewis' comments from Mere Christianity - "Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether Christianity works. The question is what Miss Bates' tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick's would be like if he became one." Further down, he analogizes the dynamic by stating - "To judge the management of a factory, you must consider not only the output but the plant. Considering the plant at Factory A it may be a wonder that it turns out anything at all; considering the first-class outfit at Factory B its output, though high, may be a great deal lower than it ought to be. No doubt the good manager at Factory A is going to put in new machinery as soon as he can, but that takes time. In the meantime low output does not prove that he is a failure."

[dianaiad]

.

Being religious does not make you better behaved, researchers have found.

A new study found 'no significant difference' in the number or quality of moral and immoral deeds made by religious and non-religious participants. 

The researchers found only one difference - Religious people responded with more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds.

To learn how people experience morality and immorality in everyday life, the researchers surveyed more than 1,200 adults, aged 18 to 68, via smartphone. 
For three days, the demographically diverse group of U.S. and Canadian citizens received five signals daily, prompting them to deliver short answers to a questionnaire about any moral or immoral act they had committed, received, witnessed or heard about within the last hour. 

In addition to the religion variable, the researchers also looked at moral experience and political orientation, as well as the effect moral and immoral occurrences have on an individual's happiness and sense of purpose. 

The study found that religious and nonreligious people differed in only one way: How moral and immoral deeds made them feel

Religious people responded with stronger emotions – more pride and gratitude for their moral deeds, and more guilt, embarrassment and disgust for their immoral deeds. 

The study also found little evidence for a morality divide between political conservatives and liberals. 

'Our findings are important because they reveal that even though there are some small differences in the degree to which liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral priorities, the moral priorities they have are more similar than different,' Skitka said. Both groups are very concerned about issues such as harm/care, fairness/unfairness, authority/subversion and honesty/dishonesty, she said. 

'By studying how people themselves describe their moral and immoral experiences, instead of examining reactions to artificial examples in a lab, we have gained a much richer and more nuanced understanding of what makes up the moral fabric of everyday experience,' Skitka said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... uilty.html

Do you agree or disagree with the bold items above? Why?

That's really interesting. I went to the site to investigate further, but I ran up against a major problem. I don't know if the study itself addressed this, but the description of it was vague at the very least, and downright uninformative at the worst, and that is this: what do the participants consider 'moral' or 'immoral?"

I know that the study showed that people seemed to be more 'the same' than 'different' in how they deal with their own moral values; that is, 'harm/unharm' or whatever....

....but there's nothing in there that delineates what anybody would consider 'harmful."

As a VERY big 'for instance,' one group could consider, oh...drinking coffee to be harmful and 'wrong,' but another sees no problem with coffee. Or smoking pot, perhaps. On the other hand, the first group might see absolutely no harm in using pesticides on their flowers, and the pot smoking crew would consider anything but completely organic gardening methods to be a sin against humanity and the earth.

Yet.....both would be deemed equally good, or bad, at dealing with their own systems.

That's not a big problem on the surface...but what if one of the respondents thought that committing murder for hire was just fine, but had a real problem with wearing clothing with anything but 'natural' fibers to be horrific?

It doesn't surprise me a bit to find that everybody deals with their own moral and ethical system pretty much the same way, and in the same percentage, as others deal with theirs.

The problem lies in the standards required.

Let's face it; some moral and ethical systems are tougher than others.

Some think it's just fine to take advantage of a naive bargainer and/or use creative accounting on their tax forms. They don't see such things as wrong or unethical, and so would not report any events involving either as 'harm.'

In the same study, though, you could get someone who would chase down the lady who dropped a quarter in the parking lot and feel guilty all day if he didn't catch her, and who keeps detailed records of all online purchases so that he can pay the sales taxes when doing his annual tax returns.

One is adhering to a considerably more 'morally and ethically challenging system than the other; how would such a study, then, deal with the disparity?

Now, I'm not saying that this study doesn't. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that it does.

Just me being a picky statistical study designer, I guess; bad questions make bad studies.

It IS encouraging, though, to see that people tend to hold to their own ethical systems to more or less the same degree, theist or atheist.

Of course, that doesn't say much for those who think that getting rid of religion will cure all the world's ills, but hey.....

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to dianaiad]

Getting rid of religion won't make people more or less moral, that I agree with. For example under no circumstance would I suspect you to dash babies against rocks or put swords in the bellies of pregnant women or stone to death disobedient children. I am of the opinion that people bend religion around their own personal subjective moral values. Hence the lack of significant difference between the two groups in the study. However, on non moral issues like science etc religion is a bit of a roadblock

[Elijah John]

I think that religious folk may have higher STANDARDS, as in believing in moral absolutes as opposed to situational and relative ethics.

But I see very little evidence that religous folks live up to those standards any better than non-religous do, who never professed those standards in the first place.

(Comparative divorce rates, for example)

If abortion is a moral issue, heavily Roman Catholic states here in the Northeast one would think that they, (we) would vote consistently for the pro-life candidate, but (sadly from my point of view) the opposite is true. We tend to vote pro-choice up here.

Religion does not seem to make any difference in our voting behavior.

And I know of some natuarlly moral individuals, fine compassionate people. (So much for the Pauline doctrine of the evil of the "natural man".)

Now if the OP was expanded to ask if and what DIFFERENCE religion makes in the lives of individuals, I think the results would be somewhat different. I think studies have shown that folks who practice PRAYER (as opposed to being nominally religous) tend to experience more contentment, peace of mind and heal at higher rates medically.

But there are always exceptions, either way.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 5 by Elijah John]

Is believing that apostates should be killed a higher moral standard?

Is slavery a higher moral standard?

Is butchering children a higher moral standard?

I really don't think religious people have higher moral standards.

They might have absolute inflexible moral standards but I wouldn't call them higher. They might also just be different it doesn't necessarily entail that one is better than the other.

[bishblaize]

[Replying to Zzyzx]

A few thoughts come to mind. Obviously the big one is whether they specified the definition of a moral act, or let the individual decide themselves.

If they did define moral or immoral - well, good luck getting consensus on that.

If not. Well, a guilt ridden Catholic, convinced they're full of sin, may decide that an act is immoral that a non-religious person wasn't concerned with. Is lusting after someone sinful or not? There could be a significant difference between what one would class as moral and immoral. That could be accounted for in the study, but it wouldn't be easy.

I'd also point out that the study took place in what is still, ostensibly, a religious country. Or at least a country whose loosely agreed collective morals fit broadly within a framework defined by its major religion. If the individuals asked weren't religious, there's a good chance their family, teachers, mentors, friends or role models were. As such the people could well have morals that were learned from religion, even if they are non-religious themselves.

btw the Uni's website link is here.

http://news.uic.edu/study-finds-moral-e ... nreligious

The full study seems to be behind a paywall though.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to Zzyzx]

A few thoughts come to mind. Obviously the big one is whether they specified the definition of a moral act, or let the individual decide themselves.

If they did define moral or immoral - well, good luck getting consensus on that.

If not. Well, a guilt ridden Catholic, convinced they're full of sin, may decide that an act is immoral that a non-religious person wasn't concerned with. Is lusting after someone sinful or not? There could be a significant difference between what one would class as moral and immoral. That could be accounted for in the study, but it wouldn't be easy.

I'd also point out that the study took place in what is still, ostensibly, a religious country. Or at least a country whose loosely agreed collective morals fit broadly within a framework defined by its major religion. If the individuals asked weren't religious, there's a good chance their family, teachers, mentors, friends or role models were. As such the people could well have morals that were learned from religion, even if they are non-religious themselves.

btw the Uni's website link is here.

http://news.uic.edu/study-finds-moral-e ... nreligious

The full study seems to be behind a paywall though.

Indeed...I would love to see the questions and the methodology. I am not, however, $20 curious...though I'll admit that this is less expensive than many such articles and studies.

Anybody here still have access to your university library, so that you can get to the questions? (sigh) I really miss having access to all those lovely databases....JSTOR, MLA,

I would REALLY like to see how the study designers dealt with the matter of moral/ethical standard differences.

The problem is that people have their own set of ethical standards to go by that may or may not be fully in line with the one they officially claim.

So how DID the study deal with the guy who felt guilty about not handing five bucks to the pan handler holding up the cardboard sign at an intersection, where another subject felt just fine about stealing access to a pay per view movie?

People have a lovely ability to justify their own behavior so that they don't have to feel guilty about stuff they do, while they are judging others for what seems like purely arbitrary notions.

How DID they deal with the squishy theist and the ethical atheist?

[dianaiad]

[Replying to dianaiad]

Getting rid of religion won't make people more or less moral, that I agree with. For example under no circumstance would I suspect you to dash babies against rocks or put swords in the bellies of pregnant women or stone to death disobedient children. I am of the opinion that people bend religion around their own personal subjective moral values. Hence the lack of significant difference between the two groups in the study. However, on non moral issues like science etc religion is a bit of a roadblock

Just as a by the way....

There is no place in the bible where God commands the Israelites to bash baby's 'heads against rocks.' Indeed, that sort of thing was done TO Israelites fairly frequently. The verse I suspect you are referencing is from Psalms, right? Psalms 137:8-9, where the Israelites were cursing the Babylonions and claiming that happy would be he (the 'he' who was, evidently, NOT the Isrealites, who were in no position to do this) who would deal with Babylon the way that Babylon had dealt with Israel?

As for the rest of your diatribe regarding just how evil every single Jew and Christian must, of course, be, because back in OT times, in cultures which did this sort of thing to each other all the time, the winners wrote the histories.

[Zzyzx]

.

It reminds me of how the Christian message has become distorted from what I believe should have been the message all along - that being, belief in the Christian God should make that individual better than he would have been had he not become such.

Hmmmm

1) People tend to come out about the same in behavior

2) Christians have become better than they would have been without belief in God

3) After improvement by belief in God Christians are about equal to others.

Shall we, therefore, conclude that Christians MUST have been pretty terrible to begin with?