Thinking of God makes people take risks

People who think about God are more likely to seek out and take risks because they view God as providing security against potential negative outcomes, according to a new study. Up until now it was believed that thinking about divinity made people give up risky behaviors in life.

The team of scientists from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business also note in the study that reminders of God are so ubiquitous suggests that this effect may impact a large number of people, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“References to God pervade daily life — on any given day you might see the word ‘God’ printed on U.S. currency, drive behind a car with a bumper sticker that references God, or use one of the many colloquial expressions that use the word ‘God.’ In fact, the word ‘God’ is one of the most common nouns in the English language,” says lead researcher Daniella Kupor of Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Previous studies had indicated that religious activities are associated with decreases in people’s engagement in risky behaviors like substance abuse and gambling, but the team from Stanford found that these risks shared a negative moral component. Then they hypothesized that thinking about God may have a different effect in relation to risks that have no moral connotation, since people tend to view God as a source of protection and security.

After studying 900 participants in different online surveys, researchers discovered that people who were reminded of God were more willing to engage in various risky behaviors than those who weren’t prompted to think about God. In one of the surveys, participants saw variations of three ads. Some of them were promoting an immoral risk (“Learn how to bribe”), ads that promoted a nonmoral risk (“Find skydiving near you”), and ads that promoted no risk (“Find amazing video games”), but in some cases, the ads included a mention of God like “God knows what you’re missing! Find skydiving near you.”

The findings showed very clear that the ad with references to God made people click more often, as long as it was a nonmoral risk.

Researchers also point out that people who were reminded of God perceived less danger in various risky behaviors, but also reported more negative feelings toward God when they lost a potential winning, suggesting that they had expected God to protect them from losing.