
 The God Effect - nickb
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/2007/12/god-effect.html
======
cturner
> Norenzayan can only speculate about the significance: > "We need that common
> denominator that works for > everyone.

When I was first reading this, I thought it would be cool to give the other
person 6 and thereby give them warm fuzzies about the anonymous other person.
And I still think this is cool.

But I'm reading _Atlas Shrugged_ at the moment and have changed my decision to
considering any outcome to be equally valid on the part of the person making
the decision. Why? Because - if someone has $10, why should they be induced to
leave any for someone else?

The study is founded on the flawed assumption that it's a good thing for
people to give their money away.

------
icky
> In the experimental condition, the researchers prompted thoughts of God
> using a well-established "priming" technique: participants, who again
> included both theists and atheists, first had to unscramble sentences
> containing words such as God, divine and sacred.

> [...]

> In a second study, the researchers had participants unscramble sentences
> containing words like civic, contract and police -- meant to evoke secular
> moral institutions.

Conclusion: sentence-unscrambling induces generosity.

