Worldviews and Altruistic Behavior: A Progress Report on Experimental Study

Abstract

International audienceThe main purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of worldviews on individual altruistic behaviors toward anonymous others, through experimental researches conducted in churches and universities in Korea, Japan and the US. The experiments were designed to compare the results between Christians and non-Christians and among the Koreans, Japanese and Americans. We found a significant correlation between the worldview and the amount of donation among Christians in Japan and Korea. Among Korean and Japanese Christians, those who believe in punishments for any bad behaviors are less likely to donate. One possible interpretation is that the punishment-related worldview might be correlated with the perception of the origin of suffering. If respondents believe that suffering is resulted from one's own irresponsible deeds, they would be less willing to make a charitable donation to anonymous others. It should be noted that the small size of our samples hinders from drawing concrete comparisons between Christians and non-Christians and between countries. Our overall estimation results should be interpreted as hinting that worldviews might affect a set of rules that determine individual altruistic decision