Original title: Preference transmission within churches: religious leaders and clusters of (in)tolerance
Authors: Bauer, Michal ; Chytilová, Julie ; Ochieng, E.
Document type: Research reports
Year: 2024
Language: eng
Series: CERGE-EI Working Paper Series, volume: 789
Abstract: Animosity towards followers of other faiths fuels inter-group conflicts. In order to study the role of religious leaders in shaping pro-sociality within their churches, we directly elicit a rich set of ingroup-out-group biases among pastors (N=200) and members of their churches (N=800) in Kenya, using controlled allocation tasks. We document remarkable heterogeneity in preferences across religious leaders, with one type treating all recipients equally independently of their religious beliefs and the second type severely discriminating against Muslims and non-religious individuals. In line with cultural transmission models, we find that: (i) pastors aim to instill their preferences in church members, (ii) church members follow leaders in an experiment that exogenously provides information about leaders’ behavior, and (iii) preferences of church members are robustly positively related to the preferences of their religious leader, especially among those with greater exposure to the leader. Together, our findings suggest that differences in preferences of religious leaders spill over and create distinct social groups with contrasting moral views how to treat out-group members.
Keywords: parochialism; religious leaders; tolerance
Project no.: LL2303 (CEP)
Funding provider: GA MŠk

Institution: Economics Institute AS ČR (web)
Document availability information: Fulltext is available at external website.
External URL: https://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp789.pdf
Original record: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0356356

Permalink: http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-653127


The record appears in these collections:
Research > Institutes ASCR > Economics Institute
Reports > Research reports