Beware of No True Scotsman
By Asst. Prof. Dr. Milos Hubina
– A: No Scotsman ever puts sugar on his porridge.
– B: My Scottish friend Alastair does put sugar on his porridge
– A: But no true Scotsman ever puts sugar on his porridge!
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“No true Scotsman” is a logical fallacy, which protects a false general statement against any empirical disconfirmation by changing the definition of its subject (here, Scotsman). It often presumes what it is supposed to prove and is well at home in religion and politics:
– A: Religion makes us better people.
– B: But what about religious wars, abuse, fraud, corruption, and believers who do not meet the basic norms of human decency?
– A: These are not true believers.
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What does religion do to people? How does it change their values and behavior? And how do we know?
Religion is a real, social thing. Whatever its teachings or moral codices, these are always conveyed and associated with particular people, institutions, and various practices and technologies, which all determine how the teaching will be received and perceived. Given this social complexity, it is not surprising that “the role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice, and it unmakes prejudice.” (Allport, 1954, p. 444).
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Priming research is a popular, though not unproblematic, experimental method to assess the effect of religion. In this research, subjects are directly or subconsciously reminded of an aspect of religion (moral teaching, ritual practice, church attendance, sacred object, or persona) and then presented with a task that reveals their attitude. The advantage of these studies is that they allow scholars to observe actual people’s behavior and do not rely on their self-reporting. Research subjects tend to describe themselves favorably, and this social desirability bias is prominent among believers who see it as their duty to represent the most positive sides of their beliefs.
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Here are some research findings:
Primed with some religious words, people cheated less. But so they did when primed with secular moral reminders. Religious and secular reminders seem to turn people to their own moral standards and make them behave more honestly.
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At the same time, in another study, priming with communal religious activities, i.e., the attendance to holy service, increased the support for suicide attacks while priming with prayer did not.
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Priming Christian concepts in American college students increased their negative attitudes toward African Americans.
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Priming with the Golden Rule attributed to Jesus did not decrease antigay attitude among Westerners, mostly Christians. When primed with the same rule attributed to the Buddha, the same subjects showed increased explicit antigay attitudes.
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Studies show the complexity of religious effects, which work in orchestration with people’s other personal characteristics and the social context in which they find themselves. This requires further intensive studies of the impact of religion on people’s behavior and a careful, discerning description of its effects. Beware of no true Scotsman.
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Here are some studies referenced in the text:
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Randolph-Seng, B., & Nielsen, M. E. (2007). Honesty: One effect of primed religious representation. In International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 17, 303-315.
Mazar, N., On, A., & Ariely, D. (2008). The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance. In Journal of Marketing Research, 45, 633-644.
Johnson, M. K., Rowatt, W. C., & LaBouff, J. (2010). Priming Christian Religious Concepts Increases Racial Prejudice. In Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 119-126.
Johnson, M. K., Rowatt, W. C., & LaBouff, J. P. (2012). Religiosity and Prejudice Revisited: In-group Favoritism, Out-group Derogation, or Both? In Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 4, 154-168.
