Tuesday, January 24, 2012

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

Deeply religious people may be more likely than secular peers to forgo a small reward now for a larger one later, a study finds.
Researchers offered nearly 300 undergraduates a series of options involving tradeoffs—$50 now or $100 in six months, for example—and asked them questions about how religious they were and how often they thought about the future.
On average, intensely religious participants reported thinking about the future more often and were more likely to wait patiently. From an evolutionary standpoint, the researchers said, the benefits of patience—in religion, valuing salvation over immediate pleasure—may help to explain why religion has flourished despite imposing substantial demands on believers.
"Religious People Discount the Future Less," Evan C. Carter, Michael E. McCullough, Jungmeen Kim, Carolina Corrales and Adam Blake, Evolution and Human Behavior (forthcoming)
Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment