Mechanisms of secularization: Testing between the rationalization and existential insecurity theories
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | This registered report tests two competing explanations of the secularization process related to rationalizing worldviews and decreasing insecurity. We will use an experimental framework where 880 secular participants from the USA and Poland will play a modified version of the Nash demand game, which simulates cooperative dilemmas indexing cooperative insecurity. To simulate institutions regulating cooperative dilemmas, participants will be offered a choice to play the game in a group without norms or with prosocial norms with extra entry requirements and a possibility of punishing non-normative behavior. Using a 2x2 between-subjects design, participants will be randomly assigned to either a secure or insecure condition, manipulated by the parameters of the Nash demand game. Next, participants will be randomly assigned either to a secular condition (choosing between a normative group and a group with no norms) or a religious condition (choosing between a normative group with religious framing and a group without norms). After the random assignment, participants will choose whether to play the demand game in a normative or non-normative group and make their game choice (withdrawing money from a common pool). We will test the two competing theories by analyzing whether insecurity increases the probability of choosing a religious normative group. The talk will discuss the results of this project and broader implications for the two theories. |
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