From the Pulpit to the People: How Sermons Shape Beliefs and Behavior
I explore the role of religious institutions in belief formation by experimentally varying the content of Friday sermons — one of the most widespread forms of in-person religious persuasion in the Muslim world — in 309 mosques in Punjab, Pakistan. Working with the Punjab Auqaf Department that administers state religious properties, I randomize mosques to deliver sermons on women’s rights, neighbors’ rights, or a control condition, with additional variation in whether arguments are framed in religious or secular terms. I find sizable impacts of women’s rights sermons (0.23 SD) and neighbors’ rights sermons (0.19 SD) on men’s beliefs and behavior as measured through lab-in-field games, field behavioral measures, and survey responses 2–4 weeks after treatments. I find suggestive evidence that effects extend downstream, with wives of husbands who received sermons on women’s rights reporting more prosocial beliefs. Examining equilibrium dynamics, I document supply-side persistence in prosociality of sermon content alongside demand-side backlash as evidenced by a 12% decline in attendance numbers at mosques that received sermons on women’s rights. Sermon content is more persuasive when grounded in religious arguments for women’s rights but in secular arguments for neighbors’ rights, consistent with a Bayesian framework modified to allow conservative religious priors to constrain updating from secular signals. Taken together, these findings highlight the continued centrality of religious institutions, such as the Friday sermon, in shaping beliefs and behavior especially among highly religious populations.