Do Religious Reminders Help You With Your Financial Decisions?

Although religion is shown to be associated with several prosocial behaviors, not much work has been done on the relationship with economic or financial decision-making. This study aims to fill this gap. Surveying 87 undergraduate students under controlled laboratory conditions, the authors analyzed the effect of subtle reminders of religious concepts on time preferences in relation to finances. The results of the experiments showed that reminding participants of religious themes decreased the percentage of present bias by 10.4%.