A new study has revealed that reminding people about their religious beliefs helps in reducing hostility behaviour in everyday life.
New research conducted at York University consistently supported the hypothesis "that being reminded of religious beliefs would normally promote less hostile reactions to the kinds of threats in everyday life that usually heighten hostility" for Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus alike.
The religiously reminded were significantly less hostile and punitive in the threatening circumstances than the non-reminded participants were (there were no effects of the religious reminders among the non-threatened participants).
Ian McGregor, York U psychology professor, said that people generally turn to the Golden Rule ideals of forgiveness and forbearance, which they associate with their religious beliefs, in threatening circumstances.
This research contributed to the current dialogue on religion by demonstrating that even brief religious belief reminders not accompanied by any explicit beliefs or injunctions tend to promote more magnanimous, less hostile choices in intimidating situations, he further added.
Though the researchers mentioned that the link between religion and magnanimity might seem surprising given that news headlines so often focus on terrorist attacks and other atrocities committed in the name of religion, the results suggested that for most people, the influence of religion might be more positive than what is often portrayed in the media.