Ishii, T.（石井辰典）, & Watanabe, K. (2022). Do empathetic people have strong religious beliefs? Survey studies with large Japanese samples. 共感的な人々は固い宗教的信念を持つだろうか？：大規模日本人サンプルを用いた検証 The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2022.2057059
The exploration of personality factors to explain individual differences in religiosity has demonstrated a link between empathic concern and religious beliefs using the Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI-EC). Research in the cognitive science of religion emphasized the role of empathizing ability related to mentalizing in acquisition of religious belief and has demonstrated the relationship between the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and religious belief. The current study was designed to compare the strength of relationships between religious belief and two representative measures of empathy (the IRI-EC and the EQ). Study 1 aimed to statistically evaluate the strength of the relationship between the EQ/IRI-EC and religious belief with four Japanese samples (Ns = 207, 155, 208, 183). The mini meta-analysis results with random effect model indicated that the effect size (semi partial correlation, r_sp) of the IRI-EC (r_sp = .120, 95%CI [.0002, .237]) was larger than that of the EQ (r_sp = .074, 95%CI [−.0001, .147]). Moreover, these results were confirmed by Study 2 (N = 1440). Thus, the present study provided reliable evidence of the link between empathy and religious belief in non-Western samples. We discuss how empathic concern and mentalizing-related empathy contribute to acquiring religious beliefs.