Religious Pro-Sociality? Experimental Evidence from a Sample of 766 Spaniards Brañas Garza, Pablo Espín Martín, Antonio Manuel Neuman, Shoshana Altruistic behavior Behavior Decision making Dictator game Experimental economics Games Payment Religion This study explores the relationship between several personal religion-related variables and social behaviour, using three paradigmatic economic games: the dictator (DG), ultimatum (UG), and trust (TG) games. A large carefully designed sample of the urban adult population in Granada (Spain) is employed (N = 766). From participants' decisions in these games we obtain measures of altruism, bargaining behaviour and sense of fairness/equality, trust, and positive reciprocity. Three dimensions of religiosity are examined: (i) religious denomination; (ii) intensity of religiosity, measured by active participation at church services; and (iii) conversion out into a different denomination than the one raised in. The major results are: (i) individuals with “no religion” made decisions closer to rational selfish behaviour in the DG and the UG compared to those who affiliate with a “standard” religious denomination; (ii) among Catholics, intensity of religiosity is the key variable that affects social behaviour insofar as religiously-active individuals are generally more pro-social than non-active ones; and (iii) the religion raised in seems to have no effect on pro-sociality, beyond the effect of the current measures of religiosity. Importantly, behaviour in the TG is not predicted by any of the religion-related variables we analyse. While the results partially support the notion of religious pro-sociality, on the other hand, they also highlight the importance of closely examining the multidimensional nature of both religiosity and pro-social behaviour. 2014-09-02T09:59:01Z 2014-09-02T09:59:01Z 2014 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Brañas-Garza, P.; Espín, A.M.; Neuman, S. Religious Pro-Sociality? Experimental Evidence from a Sample of 766 Spaniards. Plos One, 9(8): e104685 (2014). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/32866] 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/32866 10.1371/journal.pone.0104685 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Public Library of Science (PLOS)