God and the Welfare State - Substitutes or Complements? An Experimental Test of the Effect of Belief in God's Control

PLoS One. 2015 Jun 10;10(6):e0128858. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0128858. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Belief in God's control of the world is common to many of the world's religions, but there are conflicting predictions regarding its role in shaping attitudes toward the welfare state. While the devout are expected to support pro-social values like helping others, and thus might be supportive of the welfare state, the possibility of taking action is undermined by the belief in God's absolute control over world affairs and in a morally perfect providence, who is responsible for the fates of individuals. As the literature provides mixed results on this question, this study examines the role of belief in God's control on welfare attitudes using three priming experiments and two priming tasks, carried out with a design that is both cross-cultural (US vs. Israel) and cross-religious tradition (Judaism vs. Catholicism). We find evidence that, largely, belief in God's control increases support for income redistribution among Israeli Jews (study 1), American Jews (study 2), and American Catholics (study 3). The findings suggest that the traditional and common political gap between the economic left and the religious, based on the evaluation that religious beliefs lead to conservative economic preferences, may be overstated.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Religion*
  • Social Welfare*

Grants and funding

PBNB gratefully acknowledges the generous financial support from the Israel Science Foundation (ISF grant 676/13) http://www.isf.org.il/english/. No additional individuals were employed or contracted by the funders. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.