Belief in karma leads people to justify the misfortunes of others, but it also makes them more willing to donate money to those in need. New research shows that thinking about karmic rewards primarily increases generosity when the recipient of help is seen as a blameless victim of the situation. These findings were published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Karma is a concept of cause and effect originating from Asian religious traditions. It suggests that cosmic forces ensure that good behavior is ultimately rewarded and bad behavior punished. This principle exists as a fundamental belief in Hinduism and Buddhism. We also see it in Western culture among spiritually minded people who don’t follow any particular organized religion.
Schindel J.M. White, a psychology researcher at the University of York, led a group of researchers to investigate how these cosmological principles influence everyday social choices. Co-author Aiyana K. Willard of Brunel University in London worked with White to examine two competing views of how karma influences human interactions.
One view suggests that karma serves as a retrospective explanation of life events. When someone experiences financial hardship or distress, observers may think that the person did something before they deserved it. This reasoning can result in placing the blame on the unfortunate victim. It may also foster reluctance to provide help, as observers may feel that the victim is simply undergoing cosmic punishment.
Another view sees karma as something that motivates the future. People may perform good deeds, such as donating to charity or helping strangers, in order to gain positive karmic benefits for their future. In this framework, the desire for a positive fate drives prosocial behavior.
White and Willard wanted to see if these two ideas interacted in real time. They designed a research program to test how the specific circumstances of a person in need of help affect a potential donor’s karmic calculations.
The researchers conducted three cross-cultural experiments with residents of the United States, India, and Singapore. The sample included Hindu participants from India, Buddhist participants from Singapore, and the religiously diverse general population of the United States. Together, we created a large-scale study involving more than 6,000 people.
In the first experiment, participants answered questions measuring their baseline beliefs about karma. They also responded to statements measuring specific attitudes toward social inequality.
The researchers found that a strong pre-existing belief in karma was positively correlated with a tendency to view social hierarchy as legitimate. Participants who believed in karma often supported the idea that some social groups should hold more power than others. They also frequently subscribed to the idea that pure hard work guarantees ultimate success, often referred to as the Protestant work ethic. In turn, these people were more likely to see economic inequality as a fair outcome of individual effort rather than a systemic social flaw.
At the same time, this first test assessed whether encouraging people to actively think about karma would change their willingness to share a virtual pool of $100. Participants read randomized prompts that either ask them to write about the power of karma or include neutral instructions.
People who were instructed to make decisions based on karma were generally more willing to share money with struggling strangers or local religious groups. This dual discovery highlighted a clear tension in human behavior. Karma appeared to justify widespread social inequality while at the same time encouraging individual charitable giving.
To resolve this discrepancy, the team designed a second experiment. They asked participants to distribute hypothetical bonuses to different types of struggling strangers.
The researchers manipulated the recipient’s primary reason for financial need in a hypothetical profile. Some recipients have caused problems themselves through bad work habits or irresponsible personal behavior. This condition describes a situation in which the person is personally responsible for the current situation.
Some beneficiaries have lost their jobs due to unpredictable company layoffs or sudden acute illnesses. This condition represented an external factor completely beyond the subject’s control. The third group of profiles included control recipients who did not experience serious financial problems.
Participants completed an initial round of decision making to form a baseline. Then, before making the second decision, participants were given specific instructions to make their next choice based explicitly on the law of karma.
The results showed that participants in the three countries unsurprisingly preferred to give more funding to those whose problems were caused by external forces. They felt that these particular people deserved help.
Actively thinking about karma amplified this particular preference. The mental reminder to consider karma increased generosity, especially towards innocent recipients. They did not increase their giving to those who caused their own financial problems.
After the money distribution task, participants reported their personal logic for how to distribute cash. They have shown that they expect to gain the greatest karmic merit by giving to those who are suffering through no fault of their own. Giving to someone personally responsible for one’s misfortunes did not feel much of a psychological reward.
In a third experiment, we tested this setup by introducing real monetary stakes. Participants knew that the lottery system would actually pay them a cash bonus based on the allocation choices they made during the study. This ensured that respondents were taking the exercise seriously, rather than just performing a thought experiment.
The researchers also divided the experimental karmic instructions into two different angles. Some participants were asked to think hard about how their own personal actions might affect the future of the universe. Others were told to consider that other people’s current situations are a direct result of their past actions.
This finding mirrored the second experiment. In both experimental conditions, thinking about karma primarily increased monetary donations to people who were blameless victims of external circumstances. Generosity towards those who caused their own suffering remained relatively flat. Even when specifically prompted to judge the past actions of others, participants still prioritized helping individuals who had been destroyed by forces beyond their control.
Although the study spanned three different cultures, the researchers acknowledged that the impact of simply thinking about karma on overall generosity is relatively modest. Although monetary donations varied slightly depending on the experimental framework, regular social judgments about recipients’ actual and immediate needs and fundamental values remained the main drivers of behavior.
The researchers also note that in their specific scenario, they only looked at economic hardship related to employment and everyday health issues. Future research could examine whether karmic beliefs operate differently when natural disasters, catastrophic accidents, or other sudden crises cause suffering.
Ultimately, the researchers conclude that belief in karma does not universally encourage strict victim-blaming or blind charity. Instead, the concept accommodates natural human biases regarding fairness. When giving is seen as socially just, it motivates helping behavior and provides believers with a culturally approved path to securing a prosperous future for themselves.
The study, “How Karma Harms and Helps Generosity to Those in Need,” was authored by Cindel JM White and Aiyana K. Willard.
