Divine intervention in decisions : an adaptive function of religious belief

• Main Author: Lim, Alexander Yao
• Other Authors: Michael David Gumert
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/141379
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Evolutionary explanations of religion explore the adaptive function of religious beliefs and tend to focus on socially adaptive mechanisms such as group commitment and cooperation. This study tests whether an adaptive function of religious belief is to increase the efficiency of decision making by reducing one’s sense of uncertainty, and whether such a function exists in the moral, non-moral and navigational domains. Participants (N = 84) were given a set of hypothetical moral and non-moral scenarios, and a questionnaire on their navigational confidence. The time taken to make a decision and their confidence in making each decision were recorded. Participants also completed a series of questionnaires assessing religiosity and religious fundamentalism. Religiosity did not predict moral (p = .16, R2 = .02) or non-moral decision time (p = .94, R2 = .00); however, individuals grouped higher in religiosity (MEAN, N = 48) were found to make moral decisions more quickly than individuals grouped lower in religiosity (MEAN, N = 36) (t(49.95) = -2.11, p = .04). There was no significant relationship between religious fundamentalism and decision confidence or time. Neither religiosity nor religious fundamentalism predicted navigational confidence. Mediation analysis revealed that religiosity indirectly moral decision-making time through improving decision confidence [b = -.028, 95% C.I. (-.062, -.003)]. These findings provide evidence that religiosity increases the speed of moral decisions by reducing uncertainty, pointing to a previously unexplored adaptive function of religion – increased decision speed in the moral domain.