Overview
In a recent study, we asked 200 fellow Christians what areas of their Christian life they’d like to improve upon. Among the top 10 was evangelism, i.e., sharing one’s faith with others. For the socially conscious, this can seem daunting. Even Simon Peter, one of Christ’s most devout followers and the first Pope of the Catholic Church, succumbed to social pressure and denied Christ three times on the night of his arrest.
Although the stakes may be lower for us than they were for Peter, modern-day associations of religion with repression of secular freedoms could negatively affect the image of Christians who opt to share their faith. Such an effect seems even more plausible in our currently charged political climate.
But social psychology has yet to test whether sharing one’s faith actually impairs likability. Furthermore, it remains an open question how Christians themselves view other Christians who share their faith.
Although the stakes may be lower for us than they were for Peter, modern-day associations of religion with repression of secular freedoms could negatively affect the image of Christians who opt to share their faith. Such an effect seems even more plausible in our currently charged political climate.
But social psychology has yet to test whether sharing one’s faith actually impairs likability. Furthermore, it remains an open question how Christians themselves view other Christians who share their faith.
The Experiment
To test whether expressing Christian beliefs affects one’s likability, we ran a randomized within-subjects experiment with 200 people on the online research platform Prolific. Participants were instructed to read a few brief responses from people about something important to them, then answer a survey question asking how much they liked each person.
We used two hypothetical people for this experiment, “Oliver” and “Kathy,” who either wrote about the importance of their Christian faith or their health. For each participant, we randomized whether Oliver or Kathy wrote about their faith or health, as well as the order in which they were presented, to ensure order and person’s name were counterbalanced.
Below is an example to help illustrate one combination that participants could have seen.
We used two hypothetical people for this experiment, “Oliver” and “Kathy,” who either wrote about the importance of their Christian faith or their health. For each participant, we randomized whether Oliver or Kathy wrote about their faith or health, as well as the order in which they were presented, to ensure order and person’s name were counterbalanced.
Below is an example to help illustrate one combination that participants could have seen.
The following response is from Kathy about something important to her:
"My relationship with Jesus Christ is very important to me. I grew up in a family who cares a lot about Christianity, so things like going to church, praying, and reading the Bible have always been a priority."
"My relationship with Jesus Christ is very important to me. I grew up in a family who cares a lot about Christianity, so things like going to church, praying, and reading the Bible have always been a priority."
The following response is from Oliver about something important to him:
"My health is very important to me. I grew up in a family who cares a lot about health, so things like walking outside, getting fresh air, and eating right have always been a priority."
"My health is very important to me. I grew up in a family who cares a lot about health, so things like walking outside, getting fresh air, and eating right have always been a priority."
After reading each response, participants were asked “How much do you like this person? (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much)” on a 1-7 scale. This served as our outcome measure of interest.
We also tested whether participants' religion and religious habits might affect any difference between our two conditions. A demographic survey at the end of the activity asked participants “What is your religion?” We then coded responses for Christian denominations. We also asked participants “How important is religion in your life?” (1-5 scale) as well as their habits toward church attendance (1-6 scale). For church attendance, participants were asked, “How often do you attend religious services (excluding wedding and funerals)?” with answer options “Never,” “Seldom,” “A few times a year,” “Once or twice a month,” “Once a week,” and “More than once a week.”
We also tested whether participants' religion and religious habits might affect any difference between our two conditions. A demographic survey at the end of the activity asked participants “What is your religion?” We then coded responses for Christian denominations. We also asked participants “How important is religion in your life?” (1-5 scale) as well as their habits toward church attendance (1-6 scale). For church attendance, participants were asked, “How often do you attend religious services (excluding wedding and funerals)?” with answer options “Never,” “Seldom,” “A few times a year,” “Once or twice a month,” “Once a week,” and “More than once a week.”
Results
We found a sizeable negative effect of expressing the importance of one’s faith (avg. = 4.01) relative to health (avg. = 5.44), a significant 26% drop (p < 0.001). The figure below illustrates this large difference.
It’s tempting to argue that using the importance of health as a comparison during COVID-19 may be artificially inflating the difference (i.e., it’s not that we like faith less, but that we like health more). However, a similar study we ran simultaneously with the same participants used a comparison condition of the importance of “me time” and found a similar average likability rating (avg. = 5.52).
Next, we tested whether the results differed based on participants’ religion or importance of religion in their lives. Indeed, they did. Whereas non-Christians liked our faith-expressing person a whole 2.22 points less (a 40% drop), Christians liked our faith expressing person only a trivial 0.12 points less (p < 0.001). The figure below presents this interaction graphically.
A similar interaction was found for religion’s importance in one’s life. Each additional 1-point increase on the 1-5 scale for religion’s importance in the participant’s life was associated with a 0.79-point increase in likability for our faith-expressing person. As an example, a participant to whom religion is not important at all (1 out of 5) would rate our faith-expressing person 2.41 points lower than our health person, but a participant to whom religion is extremely important (5 out of 5) would rate our faith expressing person 0.81 points higher than our health person.
We did not find any order effects (p = 0.346) or naming effects of “Oliver” or “Kathy” (p = 0.269). More details regarding our general methodology and statistical analyses can be found here.
Conclusion
Christ mentioned that believers would face persecution for sharing the gospel. Indeed, 2,000 years later, this is still the case even in the U.S. But believers can take heart knowing that fellow Christians have your back. This negative effect completely goes away when the other party is also a Christian, and even becomes positive when religion is very important in his or her life. Such an effect emphasizes the need for consistent fellowship among believers. "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing" (1 Thessalonians 5:11).