Are "Thoughts and Prayers" Helpful After a Disaster


In economics, especially teaching it, a technique has become popular in recent decades called "game theory."

There are things people receive that are not part of any actual transaction. In game theory they are put into a transaction setting to see if a monetary value can be placed on them. In this case, participants put a monetary value on receiving "thoughts and prayers" as well as a value on not receiving them. Ultimately, if we were able to add up all the values people places on "thoughts and prayers" and subtracted all the values of people who don't like to hear the term "thoughts and prayers" we could know whether it was helpful to people in general or unhelpful in general.

In this exorcise, participants were given some money just for participating. Then, they were given an extra $5.00 which they could spend in response to a hypothetical disaster. After the disaster they could pay for "thoughts and prayers." There was also an offer of a Priest's prayer. The option was also offered to prevent receiving "thoughts and prayers." Participants could buy the latter or the former.

As expected, religious people appreciated the "thoughts and prayers" so much they averaged paying over $2.00 for it. Catholics appreciated the Priest prayer so much they offer over $4 of the $5 they had received. In both of these cases there also believers who did not want to hear "thoughts and prayers."

One might think non believers would simply pocket the $5 and say they were indifferent to whether there were "thoughts and prayers." That did not turn out to be the case. They disliked the ritualized jester so much they they were willing to part with some of the $5 to not hear "thoughts and prayers."

This finding is consistent with another study that wanted to assess the relationship between liberal politics and religion. This study found that liberals came to their political views from both a religious and non religious life experience. But, the longer they were liberal politically the more they became not religious. Religion came to annoy them.

My thinking is the sentence, "My sympathy for what has happened" is better than "thoughts and prayers."


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