Effects of Priming God-Image and Racial/Religious Identity on Divine Forgiveness in South Africa: Experiment-within-Survey

A professional survey company will conduct an experiment within a cross-sectional survey amongst samples of black (African), coloured, and white South African Christian adults drawn from the general population. The general focus of the research is to study Divine Forgiveness (DF) in a context in which it has not previously been studied, and this study is part of an externally-funded project on this theme. We study DF in three ways in this study: (1) Specifically, we study received or experienced DF on the part of participants; (2) Generally, we study perceived conditionality and limits of DF (i.e., what conditions we think God sets; hereafter, simply conditionality), not by asking participants whether they thought God would forgive in some absolute sense, but by asking participants whether they thought God would under certain, specified conditions. This was assessed by means of a two-item index, asking whether: (i) God would only forgive the transgressor if they apologised; and (ii) God would always forgive the transgressor [reverse scored]). (3) Furthermore, we measured conditionality of DF for multiple targets (i.e., participant’s own transgressions; others’ transgressions against the participant themselves; transgression by one group against another). Prior experimental research on Divine Forgiveness (DF) has been sparse, and none of it in South Africa (SA. The broad aims of the study are to: (1) To manipulate experimentally what has been identified as a preeminent positive correlate of DF: having a ‘God image’ (Johnson et al., 2015; Sharp et al., 2019) as kind / benevolent (God-B), versus wrathful / authoritarian (God-A). Priming God-B (God-A) is expected to increase (decrease) DF compared with a no-prime Control condition; and to have parallel impact on items assessing conditionality of DF (i.e., Priming God-B (God-A) is expected to decrease (increase) conditionality of DF, compared with a no-prime Control condition. We will test these predictions across four targets: a. Perceptions of DF for oneself (experience of DF) b. Conditionality of DF for (Self) interpersonal transgressions c. Conditionality of DF for (Others) interpersonal transgressions d. Conditionality of DF for intergroup transgressions (2) To manipulate experimentally group identity (religious group vs racial group) in order to investigate its impact on conditionality of DF. a. We expect religious identity to be associated with decreased conditionality of DF (because forgiveness is intimately linked to religion, and religious identity is being primed). We will test this impact on a.-d. above. b. On the other hand, we make no general predictions for priming racial identity, but predict specifically that, because it is associated with decreased, or inhibited, intergroup forgiveness (Van Tongeren et al., 2014), it will lead to increased conditionality of intergroup DF (i.e., there will be higher conditionality for DF for the outgroup, compared with the ingroup when racial identity is primed, compared with the no-prime Control condition. This tests will be confirmatory for racial minorities (B(A)SA, CSA), the victim groups under Apartheid; but the test will be exploratory for WSA (the perpetrator group). (3) To investigate the impact of primes (God-prime and identity-prime) on both perceived DF and conditionality of DF at three levels: [H: I spelled these all out to get them clear in MY head!] a. SELF: (i) DF for oneself: frequency & certainty that God forgives you; (ii) conditionality of forgiveness for oneself (God will only forgive me if I apologise; God will always forgive me) b. INTERPERSONAL: (i) conditionality of DF for others’ interpersonal transgressions (God will only forgive others if they apologise for harm done to me; God will always forgive them for harm done to me) c. INTERGROUP: conditionality of DF ((i) God will only forgive outgroup if they apologise for harm done to ingroup; God will always forgive outgroup for harm done to ingroup; (ii) God will only forgive ingroup if they apologise for harm done to outgroup; God will always forgive ingroup for harm done to outgroup). (4) To manipulate the order in which participants rate their own and their perceptions of Significant Others’ (religious leader, family member) conditionality of D; people’s own views of DF may be shaped by those of Significant Others, such as religious leaders or family (Fincham & May, 2021b; but see Toussaint et al., 2012). The experiment will investigate conditionality of Significant Others’ DF, with respect to: a. Interpersonal transgression: (i) own transgressions towards others; and (ii) others’ DF for someone else’s transgressions towards self. b. Intergroup transgressions during Apartheid: (i) ingroup’s transgressions towards outgroup; (ii) outgroup’s transgressions towards ingroup; we predict that conditionality of DF will be lower for ingroup vs outgroup transgressions. c. The positive association between Significant Others’ views and own views of DF conditionality should be stronger when Significant Others’ views are rated before (vs after) own views. We also predict that the association between Significant Others’ views and own views of DF conditionality will be greater: d. The more one feels closer to the Significant Other e. The more one feels it is important to agree with the Significant Other f. The higher one’s score on social conformity (Mehrabian & Stefl, 1995). (5) The design also allows us to test whether priming impacts participants’ perceptions of (a) Significant Others’ conditionality of forgiveness across self, interpersonal, and intergroup levels (we predict that DF will be greater for ingroup vs outgroup transgressions during Apartheid in South Africa; and conditionality of DF will be lower for the same ingroup vs outgroup transgression; and (b) divine forgiveness, and participants’ conditionality of DF, across the same three levels. (6) To test whether manipulating DF (via primes) impacts on the participant’s own forgiveness (as distinct from DF). According to current theorizing on DF, the key factor of God-Image has: (i) a direct effect on experienced DF, and conditionality of DF; and (ii) an indirect effect, whereby God-Image has an effect on DF (experienced or conditionality of), which in turn has an effect on participant’s own forgiveness (measured here in three ways): a. Self-forgiveness; b. Interpersonal forgiveness; and conditionality of interpersonal forgiveness c. Intergroup forgiveness (separately for ingroup and outgroup transgressors); conditionality of intergroup forgiveness (separately for ingroup and outgroup transgressors)

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