Crime and punishmentBelief in hell associated with reduced crime
A broad study, study following143,197 people in sixty-seven countries over twenty-six years, found that criminal activity is higher in societies in which people’s religious beliefs contain a strong punitive component than in places where religious beliefs are more benevolent; a country where many more people believe in heaven than in hell is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one where these beliefs are about equal
Religions are thought to serve as bulwarks against unethical behaviors. When it comes to predicting criminal behavior, however, the specific religious beliefs one holds is the determining factor, says a University of Oregon psychologist.
The study, appearing in the journal PLoS ONE, found that criminal activity is higher in societies in which people’s religious beliefs contain a strong punitive component than in places where religious beliefs are more benevolent. A country where many more people believe in heaven than in hell, for example, is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one where these beliefs are about equal. A University of Oregon release reports that the finding surfaced from a comprehensive analysis of twenty-six years of data involving 143,197 people in sixty-seven countries.
“The key finding is that, controlling for each other, a nation’s rate of belief in hell predicts lower crime rates, but the nation’s rate of belief in heaven predicts higher crime rates, and these are strong effects,” said Azim F. Shariff, professor of psychology and director of the Culture and Morality Lab at the UO. “I think it’s an important clue about the differential effects of supernatural punishment and supernatural benevolence. The finding is consistent with controlled research we’ve done in the lab, but here shows a powerful ‘real world’ effect on something that really affects people — crime.”
Last year, in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Shariff reported that undergraduate students were more likely to cheat when they believe in a forgiving God than a punishing God.
Religious belief generally has been viewed as “a monolithic construct,” Shariff said. “Once you split religion into different constructs, you begin to see different relationships. In this study, we found two differences that go in opposite directions. If you look at overall religious belief, these separate directions are washed out and you don’t see anything. There’s no hint of a relationship.”
The new findings, he added, fit into a growing body of evidence that supernatural punishment had emerged as a very effective cultural innovation to get people to act more ethically with each other. In 2003, he said, Harvard University researchers Robert J. Barro and Rachel M. McCleary had found that gross domestic product was higher in developed countries when people believed in hell more than they did in heaven.
“Supernatural punishment across nations seems to predict lower crime rates,” Shariff said. “At this stage, we can only speculate about mechanisms, but it’s possible that people who don’t believe in the possibility of punishment in the afterlife feel like they can get away with unethical behavior. There is less of a divine deterrent.”
He added, however, that these are correlational data, and so caution should be taken with the conclusions. The release notes that though Shariff and study co-author Mijke Rhemtulla of the Center for Research Methods and Data Analysis at the University of Kansas tried to account for obvious alternative explanations, more research is needed to explore other interpretations for the findings.
“This research provides new insights into the potential influences of cultural and religious beliefs on key outcomes at a societal level,” said Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation. “Although these findings may be controversial, dissecting the associations between specific belief systems and epidemiologic behaviors is an important first step for social scientists to disentangle the complex web of factors that motivate human behavior.”
— Read more in Azim F. Shariff and Mijke Rhemtulla, “Divergent Effects of Beliefs in Heaven and Hell on National Crime Rates,” PLoS ONE 7, no. 6 (18 June 2012): e39048 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0039048) ; and Azim F. Shariffa and Ara Norenzay, “Mean Gods Make Good People: Different Views of God Predict Cheating Behavior,” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 21, no. 2 (19 April 2011) (doi: 10.1080/10508619.2011.556990)
