Goal-Relevant Cognitions Associated with Helping by Individuals High on Intrinsic, End Religion

Batson et al. (1989) recently reported two studies examining the association between the motivation to help and different ways of being religious. Their results indicated that intrinsic, end religion evoked egoistic motivation to gain social and self-rewards for being helpful, not altruistic motivation to relieve the victim's need. We used a Stroop procedure to provide a very different, further test of this relationship. After listening to a (bogus) radio broadcast that presented a young woman in need, 38 female undergraduates were invited to volunteer to help her. Before volunteering (or not), these subjects completed a Stroop task. This task used color-naming latency for goal-relevant words to assess the salience of three different goals of helping: receiving social and self-reward (e.g., praise), avoiding social and self-punishment (e.g., guilt), and relieving the victim's need. Helping by subjects high on intrinsic, end religion correlated positively with color-naming latency for reward-relevant words, indicating that seeking social and self-rewards was the goal of their helping. Evidence continues to mount that the prosocial motivation associated with intrinsic, end religion is directed toward the egoistic goal of gaining social and self-rewards.