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Influence of Religion on Prosociality: A Priming Study of Buddhist Concepts among Nonbelievers in China

ABSTRACT From a theoretical perspective, there is consensus that religion is positively associated with prosocial behaviors. However, rather little is known about whether religion can increase the accessibility of prosocial concepts among nonbelievers. In the current study, we explored the influence of religion on the accessibility of such concepts among nonbelievers of Buddhism using supraliminal and subliminal priming techniques. Specifically, we employed 20 each of Buddhist and neutral words as priming stimuli, along with 20 each of prosocial and antisocial words as target stimuli. Participants were asked to determine, as quickly and as accurately as possible, if a presented word had a prosocial or antisocial meaning. In Study 1, participants were supraliminally primed (200 ms) with Buddhist words. The results showed that participants recognized prosocial words more quickly than they did antisocial words when primed with Buddhist words than with neutral words. In Study 2, we used subliminal priming (38 ms), and obtained the same results as in Study 1. Taken together, the results suggest that Buddhist concepts, whether primed explicitly or implicitly, increased the mental accessibility of prosocial concepts.