Skip to main content
Article
When God's (not) needed: Spotlight on how belief in divine control influences goal commitment
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
  • Jamel Khenfer, Zayed University
  • Elyette Roux, Aix Marseille Université
  • Eric Tafani, Aix Marseille Université
  • Kristin Laurin, The University of British Columbia
ORCID Identifiers

0000-0002-6097-884X

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2017
Abstract

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. People regularly set goals, but often fail to remain committed to them. In particular, people's commitment to their goals flags when their self-efficacy is low—when they doubt their ability to bring about their desired outcomes through their actions. We propose that when people feel low self-efficacy, reminders of external forces that ensure contingency in the world can help them restore their goal commitment. Moreover, we propose that one such external force is a powerful, interventionist God, and thus that reminders of a powerful God can help restore people's goal commitment when they feel low self-efficacy. In Study 1, we manipulated self-efficacy and measured religiosity. More religious people were more committed to their goals—a facilitating effect—but only when we had first made them feel low self-efficacy. In Study 2, we manipulated both self-efficacy and the salience of religious belief in a controlling vs. creating God. When we reminded participants of their beliefs in a controlling God, we again observed a facilitating effect when we also made them feel low in self-efficacy. Their beliefs in a creating God, in contrast, had no effect. In Study 3, we used a different experimental paradigm, and found additional support for the facilitating effect at low self-efficacy while providing evidence of mechanism.

Publisher
Academic Press Inc.
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Belief in contingencies,
  • Control threat,
  • Goal commitment,
  • Religion,
  • Religious belief,
  • Self-efficacy
Scopus ID
85009844455
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
No
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2017.01.005
Citation Information
Jamel Khenfer, Elyette Roux, Eric Tafani and Kristin Laurin. "When God's (not) needed: Spotlight on how belief in divine control influences goal commitment" Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Vol. 70 (2017) p. 117 - 123 ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/0022-1031" target="_blank">0022-1031</a>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jamel-khenfer/6/