Research Article Religion and Support for Suicide Attacks

ABSTRACT—In four studies carried out across different cultural, religious, and political contexts, we investigated the association between religion and popular support for suicide attacks. In two surveys of Palestinians and one cognitive priming experiment with Israeli settlers, prayer to God, an index of religious devotion, was unrelated to support for suicide attacks. Instead, attendance at religious services, thought to enhance coalitional commitment, posi-tively predicted support for suicide attacks. In a survey of six religions in six nations, regular attendance at religious services positively predicted a combination of willing mar-tyrdom and out-group hostility, but regular prayer did not. Implications for understanding the role of religion in suicide attacks are discussed. The suicide attack can be thought of as belonging to an extreme subset of parochial altruism (Choi & Bowles, 2007), as it com-bines a parochial act (the attacker killing out-group members) with the ultimate act of sacrifice for the in-group (the attacker killing him- or herself). In the past decade, there has been an exponential increase in the frequency of suicide attacks. For example, whereas 142 suicide attacks were carried out world