CeDEx Brown Bag Seminar - Tom Lane

This week's Brown Bag will be given by Tom Lane, Assistant Professor in Economics at Ningbo, China. 

Title: The differential effects of Jesus and God on interactive economic behaviour

Venue: C41 Sir Clive Granger

1pm to 2pm lunch provided

This study contributes to the debate over whether religion is a force for social good or harm. I show that different elements of belief within the same religion can have different effects on social behaviour. Using a dictator game experiment with two different charities as potential recipients, I measure how priming the concepts of God and Jesus affects both the pro-sociality of Christians and their propensity to discriminate against LGBTQ people, an identity group traditionally opposed by their religion. Priming Jesus significantly raises the amounts Christians give to charity, but priming God has no such effect. Christians are found, at borderline significance, to discriminate against LGBTQ people, but this discrimination does not significantly increase when Jesus or God are primed. I find no evidence of similar patterns of behaviour among a non-Christian sample, with no anti-LGBTQ discrimination and no significant effects of priming either God or Jesus.