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A Behavioral model to examine religiosity & generosity

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Abstract

The relation between religiosity and generosity is a well explored topic in the literature, however almost no existing study systematically examines the behavioral route through which religiosity influences generosity. This paper proposes a model to systematically study the inter relation between religiosity of the donor and her generosity and hence attempts to fill an important gap in the existing literature pertinent to the religious studies. The behavioral model incorporates religiosity of the donor measured by frequency of prayers in her utility function and predicts a positive relation between religiosity and generosity. The predictions of the model are tested by applying tobit maximum likelihood regressions on real donations data acquired from two controlled lab experiments performed in the United States (Christian majority country; observations = 165) and Pakistan (Muslim majority country; observations = 75). The data from both lab experiments supports the predictions of the behavioral model; ceteris paribus, subjects in the United States who regularly attend religious service donate $0.76 more compared to non-regular attenders, while subjects in Pakistan offering on average four (five) daily prayers donate 31.26 (57.14) rupees more than subjects offering only one prayer a day. The paper extends our understanding by identifying a possible route through which religiosity can influence generosity. Such an understanding can be very useful when designing a mechanism to solicit donations from the religious people.

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Data Availability

The data used in this study are acquired from the already published papers. The data set is provided as supplemental materials.

Notes

  1. Donations, generosity and giving mentioned in this paper refer to the money given to others, usually a charity organization or a needy person without expecting anything in return and without any apparent material motive (Vesterlund, 2016). These types of donations are different from those induced by the motives of tax deductions.

  2. National Philanthropic Trust. Source: https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics/

  3. Source: Connecting to Give: Faith Communities. http://jumpstartlabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ConnectedToGive3_FaithCommunities_Jumpstart2014_v1.3.pdf

  4. Source: Philanthropy Daily. https://www.philanthropydaily.com/religious-philanthropy-faith/

  5. Source: Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/dec/23/84-percent-world-population- has-faith-third-are-ch/

  6. Source: Coleman, A. (2017). Finance and Religion. Published by Lendedu.https://lendedu.com/blog/finance-and-religion/

  7. Source: Connecting to Give: Faith Communities. http://jumpstartlabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ConnectedToGive3_FaithCommunities_Jumpstart2014_v1.3.pdf

  8. Studies in the existing literature (for example: Greenway, Schnitker, & Shepherd, 2018) have already examined the relation between prayers and donations. However, current study offers a formal model to further extend understanding about the interaction of religiosity and generosity from a behavioral perspective.

  9. The behavioral model reported in this paper is a modified version of the model that was a part of the author’s PhD thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Economics of Waseda University.

  10. The authors report 10% subjects donate all endowment to a charity in a dictator game experiment.

  11. The authors’ report 36% subjects donate all endowment in a dictator game experiment.

  12. For example, warm glow model by Harbaugh (1998a and 1998b) does not allow corner solutions. The work of Harbaugh (1998a and 1998b) is more suitable for real life scenarios while the current model is equally suitable for both real lives as well lab experiments.

  13. There are two types of charitable donations in Islam: ‘Zakat’ is a compulsory donation (2.5% of the income) while “Sadaqah” is a voluntary donation. Both types of donations can lead to a warm glow dependent on the religious satisfaction. Source: https://www.muslimaid.org/media-centre/blog/charity-in-islam/

  14. PEW Research Center. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/05/christians-remain-worlds-largest-religious-group-but-they-are-declining-in-europe/

  15. For more details on the importance of charity in Islam please see the source: https://www.zakat.org/en/giving-charity-secret-publicly/

    For more details on the importance of charity in Christianity please see: Charity and Christianity. New Statesman.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-faith-column/2009/04/charity-love-god-christians

  16. In a typical dictator game, one player acting as a dictator decides the distribution of a monetary endowment while the other player (which can be a charity) plays a passive role (Forsythe, Horowitz, Savin, & Sefton, 1994; Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986). The amount shared by the dictator is treated as a proxy for generosity.

  17. I am thankful to Professor Eckel & Professor Grossman for sharing their experimental data.

  18. A profound issue with survey studies is over-reporting the charitable donations (Sablosky, 2014). To avoid this confounding effect, the current paper relies on the experimental data reporting real money donations.

  19. Source: PEW Research Center. https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/

  20. Source: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. http://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files//tables/POPULATION%20BY%20RELIGION.pdf

  21. Under the single-blind procedure, the experimenter knows the decisions of the experimental subjects while under the double-blind procedure, the decisions are completely anonymous.

  22. Studies also report a positive relation between religious activities and donations to religious organizations, however those studies are not considered here because such donations can be confounded by the religious orientation of the recipient organization.

  23. The religiosity can also be measured by the introspective analysis of the religious beliefs, thoughts and feelings (Putnam & Campbell, 2010; Umer, 2020). However, as introspective analysis is subjective, its importance can be heterogenous across individuals and therefore makes it difficult to compare religiosity across subjects. Therefore, studies relying on the introspective method are not used in this paper.

  24. The results from the data pooled for all treatments still shows a positive and significant effect of religiosity on generosity. For more details, please the regression output reported in Table 5 by Eckel and Grossman (2003).

  25. The results from the data pooled for the unearned and earned treatments also shows a positive and significant effect of religiosity on generosity. For more details, please the regression output reported in table 4 by Umer (2020).

  26. Source: PEW Research Center. https://www.pewforum.org/2018/06/13/why-do-levels-of-religious-observance-vary-by-age-and-country/

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Acknowledgements

The study was performed as a part of author’s PhD thesis (titled: Essays in Experimental Economics) submitted to the Graduate School of Economics at Waseda University, Tokyo – Japan. The author is International Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as well as a visiting researcher at the Institute of Economic Research (IER), Hitotsubashi University in Japan. The author would like to thank Doctor Robert Ferenc Veszteg - Professor of Economics at Waseda University and Doctor Alistair Munro – Professor at GRIPS for their valuable comments on the behavioral model and three anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions.

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The STATA code for data analysis is available on request.

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  1. Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan

    Hamza Umer

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  1. Hamza Umer
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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 3 Tobit Regressions Complete Results
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Appendix 2

Table 4 Fixed Effects Tobit Regression Results
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Umer, H. A Behavioral model to examine religiosity & generosity. Curr Psychol 42, 1092–1102 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01491-3

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