The Impact of Religiosity on Giving in Times of Uncertainty: Lessons from COVID-19

Abstract

Prior research suggests that giving behaviors and attitudes toward giving can change during times of uncertainty. This makes it important to understand the dynamics of giving and perceptions of donors during such events. In this study we examine the role of uncertainty intolerance in the relationship between religiosity and giving. We explore two competing hypotheses with uncertainty intolerance playing the roles of mediator and moderator in this relationship. Although our empirical results (n = 1,733) suggest that both of these roles were statistically not significant, we did find a very strong and robust effect of religiosity on giving. Our main finding is that perceptions about uncertainty did not affect giving in 2020 when the US was going through the COVID-19 crisis. Thus, in the US, giving is robust and remained stable during the pandemic-related uncertainty. These findings held across religious denominations but varied across several demographic characteristics and have some important implications despite limitations such as data being observational and US-specific with Muslim Americans oversampled.