Effects of Religious Music on Dishonest Behavior

Investor logo
Authors

KUNDT Radek LANG Martin NICHOLS Aaron KAVANAGH Christopher XYGALATAS Dimitrios YAMADA Yunko ŠTĚPÁNKOVÁ Lenka ARIELY Dan MITKIDIS Panagiotis

Year of publication 2018
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description Using a piece of instrumental religious music, we conducted two experiments across four different sites: Japan, Mauritius, the Czech Republic, and the USA. Participants were exposed to one of three kinds of auditory stimuli (religious, secular, or white noise), and were given a chance to cheat on the subsequent task to increase their monetary reward. A significant interaction between condition and religiosity across all sites, with religious participants being more influenced by religious stimuli than non-religious participants, suggests that religious music can function as a subtle moral cue, however, only for those who previously formed this moral association via cultural socialization and ritual participation.
Related projects:

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.