People who recall being absolved of their sins are more
likely to donate money to the church, according to research published today in
the journal Religion, Brain and Behavior.
Researchers from Royal Holloway and the University of Oxford
assigned participants two memory tasks. In the first, they were asked to
privately recall a sin that they had committed in the past, while in the
second, they recalled attending confession for this sin or imagined doing so,
if they had not confessed in reality.