This study doesn't mention the total contributions of more religious vs. less religious people, just the relative differences as far as compassion is concerned, but it's still a useful item to keep in one's arsenal of responses to fundies who claim atheists aren't motivated by compassion for others.
And here's an article based on the findings:
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Why are highly religious people less likely to be moved by compassion than
atheists, agnostics, and people who are religiously unaffiliated? After all,
charity is a central tenet of most religious traditions. But, according to a new
study from scientists at the University of California, Berkeley
<http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/04/30/religionandgenerosity/> , that fact
may be exactly why highly religious people are least likely to be moved by
compassion.
In a series of experiments, the scientists found that nonreligious people were
consistently compelled toward acts of generosity by feelings of compassion.
According to the study's news release, compassion is defined as "an emotion felt
when people see the suffering of others which then motivates them to help, often
at a personal risk or cost." By contrast, for people who were rated "highly
religious" on an unidentified religiosity scale (the full article is behind a
firewall), compassion had no impact on their levels of generosity. This finding
is especially interesting in light of recent evidence showing that the highly
religious are less likely to think analytically <http://www.care2.com/causes/will-too-much-thinking-make-you-an-atheist.html>
.
A moral obligation
This report, however, does not mean that highly religious people are, in
general, less compassionate. But it does unseat a fundamental assumption about
acts of generosity or charity: that is, that these acts are motivated by
feelings of empathy and compassion. That appears to be true for people who are
non-religious, but for the highly religious, generosity appears to be more
connected to a sense of moral obligation.
Laura Saslow, the study's lead author said that she was inspired to undertake
the study after a nonreligious friend told her that "he had only donated to
earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti after watching an emotionally stirring
video of a woman being saved from the rubble, not because of a logical
understanding that help was needed."
In one of the experiments, subjects watched either a "neutral" or a
"heartrending" video, and were then given 10 "lab dollars," with the instruction
to give any amount of that money to a stranger. The non-religious people who had
watched the "heartrending" video were much more likely to give more of their
money away.
Emotional or doctrinaire connection?
"Overall, we find that for less religious people, the strength of their
emotional connection to another person is critical to whether they will help
that person or not," explained Robb Willer, a study co-author. "The more
religious, on the other hand, may ground their generosity less in emotion, and
more in other factors such as doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational
concerns."
There are two ways to read this. The findings indicate that though non-religious
people are more prone to spontaneous acts of generosity if they feel compassion
toward another individual, they are also less likely to be involved in a
community that encourages regular giving to charitable causes in the first
place.
More religious may simply act sooner
That is, a highly religious person might have been driven by social obligation
to donate to earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti before Saslow's friend saw the
video that inspired him to give. Indeed, these findings seem to suggest that
religious people are more likely to give charity because it is the right thing
to do without any prodding from researchers. On the other hand, as Willer
pointed out, "When feeling compassionate, [the non-religious] may actually be
more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people."
These findings are further complicated because different religions have
different traditions regarding charity and compassion. It is possible that
Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and any other religious tradition might
all teach the importance of charity differently. Since the studies had fairly
small sample sizes, it is difficult to break out how people from different
religious traditions might have different ways of dealing with compassion. This
study, however, does show that for organizations seeking to inspire people to
donate to charitable causes, different tactics might be in order when targeting
religious and non-religious people on the aggregate.
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