The Intergroup and Contextual Determinants of Real-World Religious Donations: An Experimental Test in Jerusalem

Abstract

Religious belief commonly relates to prosocial behavior, yet studies suggest that religious individuals tend to limit their prosociality to ingroup members. In this study, we conducted a door-to-door fundraising field experiment to investigate further religious prosociality and ingroup favoritism in a real-world setting. Our results support the association between religiosity and prosociality, showing that religious individuals (compared to secular individuals) were likelier to donate and display hospitality toward fundraisers. However, we also found evidence of ingroup bias by focusing on the role of religiosity level as a boundary of the religious ingroup among co-religionists. Religious people were more inclined to donate to religious fundraisers than secular fundraisers, despite a shared religious affiliation with both. Furthermore, we explored the implications of religious diversity residential context on this nuanced ingroup bias and suggest that the religious community structure alone may not be sufficient to explain the nuances of religious prosocial behavior.