divergent effects of beliefs in heaven and hell on national crime rates发散效应在天堂和地狱的信仰国家的犯罪率.pdfVIP

Divergent Effects of Beliefs in Heaven and Hell on National Crime Rates 1 2 Azim F. Shariff *, Mijke Rhemtulla 1 Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States of America, 2 Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States of America Abstract Though religion has been shown to have generally positive effects on normative ‘prosocial’ behavior, recent laboratory research suggests that these effects may be driven primarily by supernatural punishment. Supernatural benevolence, on the other hand, may actually be associated with less prosocial behavior. Here, we investigate these effects at the societal level, showing that the proportion of people who believe in hell negatively predicts national crime rates whereas belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates. These effects remain after accounting for a host of covariates, and ultimately prove stronger predictors of national crime rates than economic variables such as GDP and income inequality. Expanding on laboratory research on religious prosociality, this is the first study to tie religious beliefs to large-scale cross-national trends in pro- and anti-social behavior. Citation: Shariff AF, Rhemtulla M (2012) Divergent Effects of Beliefs in Heaven and Hell on National Crime Rates. PLoS ONE 7(6): e39048. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0039048 ´ Editor: Tiziana Zalla, Ecole Normale Superieure, France Received February 13, 2012; Accepted May 17, 2012; Published June 18, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Shariff, Rhemtulla. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source