Like a camera in the sky? Thinking about God increases public self-awareness and socially desirable responding

a r t i c l e i n f o Believers describe God as a strategic social agent who perceives human thoughts and actions. Thinking about God therefore might make believers feel as if their behavior is being monitored, a possibility we call the supernatural monitoring hypothesis. Three studies offered new and converging empirical support for this hypothesis using two variables that are sensitive to perceived social surveillance: public self-awareness and socially desirable responding. For believers, the effect of an explicit God prime on public self-awareness was comparable to the effect of thinking about how other people view oneself (Experiment 1). An implicit God concepts prime increased public self-awareness (Experiment 2) and socially desirable responding (Experiment 3) among believers. These studies offer the first direct evidence that thinking of God triggers perceived social surveillance. " His eyes are on the ways of men; He sees their every step. " Job 34:21, NIV Belief in supernatural agents is a hallmark of our species. In religious groups around the world, gods are seen as intentional moral agents with human-like beliefs and desires; many gods are believed to monitor, judge, reward, and punish human behaviors and intentions (e. Yet, despite the obvious importance of such beliefs in human cultures around the world, relatively little is known about the psychological and cognitive consequences of belief in supernatural monitoring. When believers think about watchful deities , do they in fact feel as if they are being monitored? In the present paper, we examine evidence for the as-yet untested supernatural monitoring hypothesis: that thinking of God triggers the same psychological responses as perceived social surveillance. The supernatural monitoring hypothesis has important implications for a growing literature investigating the relationship between religion and cooperation (e. Specifically, the supernatural monitoring hypothesis speaks to the more basic question of why religion might cause large scale anonymous prosociality in humans. People are less prone to selfishly cheat the system when they feel watched 2005), and if reminders of moralizing gods make people feel watched, then beliefs in moralizing gods, who can monitor social interactions even when no humans are watching, may have been instrumental for promoting large scale human cooperation among strangers. Consistent with this, Roes and Raymond (2003) found that across a sample of 186 human societies, belief in watchful, moralizing gods was positively correlated with measures of group cohesion and size. In addition , experimental research reveals …