Project overview
The spiritual exercise of fasting exists in many different religious traditions. Yet physical hunger appears to be associated with some antisocial aspects of human nature – evidence suggests that hunger is associated with more interpersonal competition, manipulativeness, and anger and aggression. Why then would religious traditions recommend fasting as a spiritual discipline? This project, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation and directed by Drs. Jordan Moon and Michael Barlev (Arizona State University), explored the paradoxical nature of hunger and religious fasting across several religious traditions. The project used methods such as Google search data, field experiments, and economic games to test whether religious fasts are associated with well-being and prosocial behavior, as well as exploring potential mechanisms behing these effecs.
Staff
Lead researchers
Research outputs
Jordan W. Moon & Michael Barlev,
2026, Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 9(1)
Type: article
Jordan W. Moon,
2024, Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 46(3)
Type: article
Alexandra S. Wormley, Carley Vornlocher, Eric Y. Aglozo, Eranda Jayawickreme, Kathryn A. Johnson, Jordan W. Moon, Patty Van Cappellen, Apoorva Verma & Adam B. Cohen,
2023, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 20(1), 43-58
Type: article