Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp Religious shoppers spend less money ☆ Didem Kurt a, ⁎ , J. Jeffrey Inman b , Francesca Gino c a Questrom School of Business, Boston University, Rafik B. Hariri Building Room 611, 595 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215, USA b Katz Graduate School of Business, 350 Mervis Hall, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA c Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Baker Library 447, Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02163, USA ARTICLE INFO Handling editor: Elizabeth Page-Gould Keywords: Religion Money Frugality Consumption Unplanned purchases ABSTRACT Although religion is a central aspect of life for many people across the globe, there is scant research on how religion affects people's non-religious routines. In the present research, we identify a frequent consumption activity that is influenced by religiosity: grocery shopping. Using both field and laboratory data, we find that grocery spending decreases with religiosity. Specifically, we document that people who live in more religious U.S. counties spend less money on groceries and make fewer unplanned purchases. We also demonstrate this negative relationship by measuring religiosity at the individual level and employing a religious prime. That is, the more religious people are, the less willing they are to follow through on novel purchase opportunities that arise during their grocery shopping trips. This effect is consistent with the account that many religions em- phasize the value of being prudent with money. Additional analysis supports our predicted indirect effect of religiosity on spending through frugality. 1. Introduction Three out of every four people in the United States are affiliated with a religion, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center study (http:// www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study). Even for the non-re- ligious, religion is a prevalent social force, influencing realms of life ranging from politics and economics to education and art (e.g., Iannaccone, 1998). Despite being a widespread part of American so- ciety, limited research has been conducted on how religion affects people's routine, non-religious activities. In the present research, we examine whether religiosity affects the amount of money people spend on their grocery purchases, a major and frequent consumption activity. For the purpose of our study, we define religion broadly as “a belief in God accompanied by a commitment to follow principles believed to be set forth by God” (McDaniel & Burnett, 1990; p. 103). We are surrounded by religious symbols and cues that remind us of religious values, which can potentially guide our and others' actions. Research has shown that because people tend to anticipate protection from God, reminders of God increase risk taking in domains with no moral implications (Chan, Tong, & Tan, 2014; Kupor, Laurin, & Levav, 2015). Prior studies have also found a link between religiosity and virtuous behavior (e.g., Geyer & Baumeister, 2005; Vitell, 2009; Vitell, Paolillo, & Singh, 2005). For example, reminders of religion (e.g., re- calling the Ten Commandments) have been shown to reduce unethical behavior (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008) and enhance social fairness (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). Others have found that when exposed to religious themes, people endure unpleasant or impossible tasks for a longer period of time (Rounding, Lee, Jacobson, & Ji, 2012). More relevant to the current topic, research has found that people with stronger religious beliefs exhibit less brand reliance (Shachar, Erdem, Cutright, & Fitzsimons, 2011) and are less likely to engage in conspicuous consumption (Stillman, Fincham, Vohs, Lambert, & Phillips, 2012) than those with weaker or no religious beliefs. In ad- dition, being exposed to brands has been shown to reduce one's com- mitment to religion (Cutright, Erdem, Fitzsimons, & Shachar, 2014). There is also some evidence that religiosity hinders the diffusion of new products (Chandrasekaran & Tellis, 2008). These findings are consistent with the notion that religious thoughts lead to distancing oneself from materialism and unjustified spending. Many religions discourage overspending, which is believed to impede spiritual growth (Lastovicka, Bettencourt, Hughner, & Kuntze, 1999). Conversely, frugality is com- monly viewed as virtuous across different religions (e.g., Westacott, 2016). More generally, religious people have value systems that differ from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.019 Received 24 July 2017; Received in revised form 31 March 2018; Accepted 31 March 2018 ☆ The authors thank the Point of Purchase Advertising International for providing the grocery shopper data. For their helpful comments, they also thank the review team as well as seminar participants at the 2017 Society for Consumer Psychology Winter Conference, 2017 La Londe Marketing Conference, and the 2017 Association for Consumer Research North America Conference. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: dkurt@bu.edu (D. Kurt), jinman@katz.pitt.edu (J.J. Inman), fgino@hbs.edu (F. Gino). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx 0022-1031/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Kurt, D., Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.019