Religiosity and fairness perceptions
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, cilt.9, sa.3-4, ss.182-199, 2016 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 9 Sayı: 3-4
- Basım Tarihi: 2016
- Doi Numarası: 10.1037/npe0000066
- Dergi Adı: Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.182-199
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Distribution, Fairness, Inequality, Religion
- Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
We measured the impact of religiosity on preferences over distribution of resources. In 2 surveys, subjects were asked to assess the fairness of 3 hypothetical distributions of resources between 2 agents, who differed in their ability to convert these resources into final goods. Even though the relative popularity of alternative distributions is similar among religious and nonreligious people, some significant differences emerged between these 2 groups. With minimal information about the abilities of the agents, less religious people were more likely to prefer the egalitarian distribution and less likely to prefer the Rawlsian distribution. When differences in abilities were explained to be due to external factors, we observed a similar pattern. However, when the differences in abilities were due to voluntary choices of the agents, utilitarian distribution was the most popular choice by both religious and nonreligious people. These results remained robust when we controlled for other relevant factors. Religious and nonreligious people also disagreed on the issues around working toward making everyone equal, and insuring people who make unlucky economic choices.