Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons

People avoid tempting fate because they intuitively believe that it would result in misfortune. Perceiving God as having a humanlike capability to watch and take control can explain these beliefs in tempting fate (BTF)—to tempt fate is to offend God and invite punishment. This study aims to examine...

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Main Author: Goh, Marcus Tian Xi
Other Authors: Albert Lee Kai Chung
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168491
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1684912023-06-18T15:31:59Z Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons Goh, Marcus Tian Xi Albert Lee Kai Chung School of Social Sciences AlbertLee@ntu.edu.sg Social sciences::Psychology People avoid tempting fate because they intuitively believe that it would result in misfortune. Perceiving God as having a humanlike capability to watch and take control can explain these beliefs in tempting fate (BTF)—to tempt fate is to offend God and invite punishment. This study aims to examine whether beliefs of people primed with anthropomorphism of God (AoG) would influence their subsequent behavioural response. We predict that a stronger AoG prime would increase participants’ avoidance of tempting fate, even after controlling for risk taking, religious motivation, faith in intuition, negativity bias, gender, and age, especially among religious participants. In a double-blind experiment manipulating AoG using an image selection priming task, 96 undergraduates from a Singaporean university were randomly assigned to either the strong or weak AoG condition, where they viewed images of humans or objects, respectively. Participants willingness to incur a cost by rejecting limited opportunities to tempt fate for a reward measured their BTF. Using negative binomial regression modelling appropriate for count data, the effect of AoG condition, b ≤ 0.40, was not significant for religious participants, before and after including covariates, ps ≥ .13, failing to support the hypotheses. However, the significant interaction between AoG and religious motivation scores, b = 0.36, p = .048, suggest that among the highly religious, AoG influences BTF. After certain exploratory analyses, we suggest that AoG influences BTF when one perceives the higher power as watchful and punitive, can easily assess these concepts, and believes in the higher power. Bachelor of Social Sciences in Psychology 2023-06-13T07:05:57Z 2023-06-13T07:05:57Z 2023 Final Year Project (FYP) Goh, M. T. X. (2023). Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168491 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168491 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social sciences::Psychology
spellingShingle Social sciences::Psychology
Goh, Marcus Tian Xi
Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
description People avoid tempting fate because they intuitively believe that it would result in misfortune. Perceiving God as having a humanlike capability to watch and take control can explain these beliefs in tempting fate (BTF)—to tempt fate is to offend God and invite punishment. This study aims to examine whether beliefs of people primed with anthropomorphism of God (AoG) would influence their subsequent behavioural response. We predict that a stronger AoG prime would increase participants’ avoidance of tempting fate, even after controlling for risk taking, religious motivation, faith in intuition, negativity bias, gender, and age, especially among religious participants. In a double-blind experiment manipulating AoG using an image selection priming task, 96 undergraduates from a Singaporean university were randomly assigned to either the strong or weak AoG condition, where they viewed images of humans or objects, respectively. Participants willingness to incur a cost by rejecting limited opportunities to tempt fate for a reward measured their BTF. Using negative binomial regression modelling appropriate for count data, the effect of AoG condition, b ≤ 0.40, was not significant for religious participants, before and after including covariates, ps ≥ .13, failing to support the hypotheses. However, the significant interaction between AoG and religious motivation scores, b = 0.36, p = .048, suggest that among the highly religious, AoG influences BTF. After certain exploratory analyses, we suggest that AoG influences BTF when one perceives the higher power as watchful and punitive, can easily assess these concepts, and believes in the higher power.
author2 Albert Lee Kai Chung
author_facet Albert Lee Kai Chung
Goh, Marcus Tian Xi
format Final Year Project
author Goh, Marcus Tian Xi
author_sort Goh, Marcus Tian Xi
title Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
title_short Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
title_full Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
title_fullStr Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
title_full_unstemmed Anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
title_sort anthropomorphism of god explains behavioural evidence for beliefs in tempting fate in religious persons
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/168491
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