宗教信仰对亲社会行为的影响

以往研究发现宗教信仰与亲社会行为之间存在显著的正相关, 据此研究者提出“信仰-亲社会假设”试图证实两者的因果关系。本文主要从研究方法、影响因素及心理机制三个方面对信仰影响亲社会行为的研究进展进行介绍和评述。在研究早期, 研究者主要考察宗教信仰的归属身份对个体亲社会行为的影响; 而近年来, 研究者则越来越关注信仰启动对亲社会行为的影响。信仰对亲社会行为的作用受到信仰程度、文化背景、信仰认知和信仰取向等多种因素的影响。未来研究需要有效控制宗教信仰身份对亲社会测量的影响, 明确宗教信仰的操作性定义并改进相关的测量指标, 关注精神性的作用机制、“信仰-亲社会假设”的跨文化效应以及信仰概念对非宗教信仰群体的影响。

Religion and Prosocial Behavior

Previous research has identified the positive correlation between religion and prosocial behavior. Accordingly, the “religious prosociality hypothesis” was proposed to further examine if there was a causal relation. In this paper, progress of current researches concerning the religious prosociality hypothesis would be introduced and reviewed, from the perspective of methodology, influencing factors and psychological mechanism. In its early stage, researchers mainly focused on the effect of religious identity on prosocial behavior, however, in recent years, more and more importance has been attached to the effects of religious priming. “Religious Prosociality Hypothesis” was supposed to be influenced by a variety of factors, including intensity of faith, cultural background, religious cognition and religious orientation etc. As to the future research, the impact of religious identity on prosocial measurement should be effectively controlled, the operational definition of religion should be specified and relevant measurements should be improved, the mechanism of spirituality, cross-cultural effect of religion and effect of religious belief on nonreligious individuals should be closely regarded as well.