EXPLAINING LIFE-ALTERING OCCURRENCES - A TEST OF THE GOD-OF-THE-GAPS HYPOTHESIS

This experiment extends the growing literature aimed at identifying th e conditions that impel people to make religious attributions. A total of 177 subjects were presented a series of 16 vignettes after each of which they provided an attributional analysis. The event depicted in each vignette was either (a) an action or occurrence having (b) a posi tive or negative outcome that was (c) life-altering or non-life-alteri ng. Subjects selected their attributions from a menu that included rel igious causal agents (God, Satan), several naturalistic causes (e.g., the protagonist's characteristics, other actors), and nonreligious-sup ernaturalistic causes (fate, luck). As predicted attributions to God w ere most commonly made when the event was a life-altering occurrence h aving positive consequences. Attributions to Satan, rarely made, were prompted by life-altering events having negative consequences. As for whether subjects exhibited a ''God-of-the-gaps'' pattern of causal rea soning, the evidence was mixed but tended to support the conclusion th at they did not.