How Karma Harms and Helps Generosity Toward Those in Need

Abstract

Three preregistered cross-cultural studies (N = 6,049 across India, Singapore, and the United States) tested how belief in karma shapes victim blaming and helping. Study 1 found that belief in karmic causality positively predicts a variety of system-justifying beliefs that legitimate social inequalities, but experimental reminders of karma also encouraged generosity toward others experiencing financial hardship. Studies 2 and 3 tested whether karma framing had different effects on generosity toward different recipients, who varied in their level of need and reason for need. Thinking about karma changed the importance of recipient characteristics, with need being less predictive and external attributions more predictive of giving when thinking about karma. Overall, experimental reminders of karma only reliably increased generosity toward recipients whose financial need was no fault of their own, showing that karmic beliefs draw attention to the reasons for people’s bad fortune, and evoke responses to misfortune that are sensitive to naturalistic explanations.