Religion replenishes self-control

Psychological Science
Kevin RoundingLi-Jun Ji

Abstract

Researchers have proposed that the emergence of religion was a cultural adaptation necessary for promoting self-control. Self-control, in turn, may serve as a psychological pillar supporting a myriad of adaptive psychological and behavioral tendencies. If this proposal is true, then subtle reminders of religious concepts should result in higher levels of self-control. In a series of four experiments, we consistently found that when religious themes were made implicitly salient, people exercised greater self-control, which, in turn, augmented their ability to make decisions in a number of behavioral domains that are theoretically relevant to both major religions and humans' evolutionary success. Furthermore, when self-control resources were minimized, making it difficult for people to exercise restraint on future unrelated self-control tasks, we found that implicit reminders of religious concepts refueled people's ability to exercise self-control. Moreover, compared with morality- or death-related concepts, religion had a unique influence on self-control.

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Citations

Mar 19, 2014·Psychonomic Bulletin & Review·Gregory Francis
Dec 15, 2015·Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review·Christopher Holmes, Jungmeen Kim-Spoon
Mar 26, 2016·Frontiers in Psychology·Cheng Chen, Guibing He
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Jan 19, 2021·Current Opinion in Psychology·Zeve J Marcus, Michael E McCullough
Feb 22, 2021·Journal of Religion and Health·Steven PirutinskyDavid H Rosmarin

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