New research published in journal Psychology of religion and spirituality Our findings suggest that belief in hell may be associated with more conservative sexual behavior in different societies. The findings show that while religious beliefs help shape romantic choices, fear of supernatural punishment tends to act as a stronger social deterrent against casual sex and infidelity than the expectation of divine reward.
Across many different cultures and historical periods, human societies have accepted the concept of an afterlife, where actions on earth are subject to divine judgment. Study authors Samudera Fadlilah Jamaluddin and Fakira Inayatulobani from the Department of Psychology at Gadjah Mada University wanted to find out why these particular religious ideas remain so deeply rooted in modern society.
They proposed that expectations of moral outcomes after death often apply directly to human sexuality. “Much of the religious psychology literature treats religion as a single, undifferentiated construct,” Jamaluddin says. “Although there is strong evidence that fear of supernatural punishment promotes cooperation, little is known about how beliefs in an afterlife relate specifically to romantic and sexual behavior.”
In many traditions, short-term mating behavior and infidelity are classified as sins worthy of eternal punishment. Long-term, committed relationships are usually praised and recognized as sacred obligations. Religious frameworks tend to moralize monogamy by framing the marriage vow as a sacred obligation rather than a mere social contract.
“We were struck by the fact that while long-term mating is praised, short-term mating is so often moralized as a ‘sin’,” Jamaluddin said. “We wanted to test whether beliefs about heaven and hell lead people to choose relationships that support stability. That may help explain why these beliefs have persisted for so long.”
Monogamous relationships tend to have many adaptive benefits for human survival and community building. Monogamous unions reduce the risk of resource deprivation and child malnutrition by concentrating parental investment. These family structures promote certainty of paternity and facilitate efficient resource sharing between partners. A stable marriage also creates a structured environment in which parents can easily pass on their religious values to their children.
Scientists have proposed that certain afterlife beliefs promote monogamy, thereby ensuring that the same beliefs persist across generations. To understand both broad cultural patterns and individual psychology, scientists conducted two separate studies.
The first study investigated macro-level associations across different countries to understand the broader social landscape. The authors analyzed data from the World Values Survey and a large-scale intercultural relations dataset. They looked at information from 27 countries, including 37,349 participants on the beliefs measure and 21,400 participants on the sexual behavior measure.
For each country, the researchers calculated national averages for belief in heaven and belief in hell. They also collected national data on relationship preferences, casual sexual experiences, emotional infidelity, and relationship satisfaction.
To ensure statistical accuracy, the model controlled for several country socio-economic factors. These included gross domestic product per capita, known as the Gini Index, which measures attitudes to income inequality, national unemployment and gender equality.
The analysis revealed a clear pattern in belief in hell compared to belief in heaven. At the societal level, the national prevalence of belief in hell predicted lower rates of casual sexual behavior. Countries with strong beliefs in hell also report much lower rates of sexual infidelity and lower societal acceptance of casual sex.
“Belief in hell, rather than belief in heaven, is more consistently associated with sexual restraint, including less casual sex, more conservative attitudes, and less infidelity,” Jamaluddin told SciPost. “At a societal level, this is true even after accounting for wealth, inequality, and gender equality.”
Interestingly, general biological desire for casual sex did not decrease significantly in these regions. This suggests that people in these societies experience similar urges but choose not to act on them due to fear of supernatural punishment. “Notably, these beliefs do not seem to reduce sexual desire itself, but rather determine whether people act on their sexual desire,” Jamaluddin said. “This fits with the idea that the threat of punishment is a more reliable behavioral constraint than the promise of reward.”
When looking at belief in heaven at the national level, the association with infidelity and casual sex was much weaker. These positive connections largely disappeared after controlling for economic and equality factors. Other relationship dynamics, such as intimacy, passion, and commitment, did not show reliable associations with either belief when socio-economic conditions were taken into account. This provides evidence that socio-economic conditions, along with religious climate, strongly shape relationship dynamics.
The authors then shifted their focus to the individual level in their second study. This change allowed them to avoid the fallacy of ecological reasoning. This fallacy is a logical fallacy that incorrectly assumes that broad social trends apply perfectly to all individuals within that society.
The researchers used data from the U.S. General Social Survey collected between 1972 and 2024. The sample size for this second study varied from 388 to 4,788 participants, depending on the specific research question being analyzed. This variation occurred because the survey used a split-vote design. This means that not all questions will be asked to all participants each year.
Participants reported their personal beliefs about heaven and hell, as well as their attitudes toward premarital sex and infidelity. The survey also asked respondents to report the number of lifetime sexual partners, marital satisfaction, and total number of children. The scientists controlled for each respondent’s age and income. This allowed us to separate the specific psychological effects of religious beliefs from the effects of demographics.
At the individual level, both belief in heaven and belief in hell predicted more sexually and romantically conservative orientations. Stronger personal beliefs about either concept were associated with lower acceptance of premarital sex. Participants who believed in an afterlife also reported fewer lifetime sexual partners than those who did not.
Individual beliefs about heaven and hell also positively predicted having more children. This finding is consistent with a broader trend that higher religiosity is associated with higher birth rates and family formation. These family-oriented behaviors help promote the intergenerational continuity of religious values.
Neither belief reliably predicted an individual’s overall marital satisfaction or likelihood of divorce. This indicates that afterlife beliefs function more specifically to regulate sexual behavior rather than shaping overall relationship quality. Both the punishment aspect of hell and the reward aspect of heaven appear to motivate pro-family behavior at the individual level.
“The most striking result was how beliefs behave differently depending on the level of analysis,” Jamaluddin said. “At the societal level, belief in hell stood out as a unique predictor of sexual bondage, but at the individual level, both heaven and hell predicted more prolific and more conservative attitudes. This was a useful reminder that national patterns and individual psychology are not the same thing.”
The authors suggest that the possibility of supernatural punishment functions as an exorbitant cost of high stakes. This mechanism is somewhat similar to loss aversion, a psychological concept in which people prefer to avoid negative outcomes rather than obtain equivalent gains.
The threat of hell serves as a consistent moral constraint against violating interpersonal norms. Abstract rewards from heaven can lead to moral license for individuals to justify minor transgressions because they feel that their overall good deeds have earned them a reward.
Readers should avoid assuming that religious beliefs are the sole cause of monogamous behavior or relationship stability. The socio-economic environment plays a major role in shaping relationships. In areas lacking strong government support systems, religious organizations often provide essential social and economic support to keep families together.
The threat of divine punishment may simply reinforce actions to keep this communal support intact. “The effects are modest and correlated, so they represent overall group trends rather than individual fortunes,” Jamaluddin said. “The social analysis is also based on just 27 countries, so these estimates should be read as indicative.”
He added that the individual-level associations were statistically robust and reproduced broad patterns, giving the team further confidence. The study also relies on decades of self-reported survey data. This methodology may obscure specific generational shifts in how religious beliefs interact with evolving sexual norms over time.
Relying on correlational data also means the researchers cannot conclusively prove that belief in hell directly causes people to avoid casual sex. “Firstly, we do not claim that belief in hell makes people loyal, because this is a correlation, not a causation,” Jamaluddin said. “Second, and most importantly, readers need to avoid the fallacy of ecological reasoning: patterns that emerge across countries do not imply that individuals in those countries behave that way.”
He also pointed out that the survey results are not a value judgment about religious or non-religious people. Future research could follow individuals over time to see how changing religious beliefs affect sexual behavior as they age. Scientists could also investigate how these particular afterlife beliefs operate within non-Abrahamic religious traditions that view the afterlife differently.
“We want to move to designs that better address mechanisms and change over time, such as cohort analyses, longitudinal analyses, and cross-cultural individual-level data,” Jamaluddin said. She hopes future research will test the idea that these beliefs work through deliberate, thoughtful moral reasoning rather than by changing impulses or desires.
The study, “From Hell to Devotion: A Multilayered Investigation of Hell vs. Heaven Beliefs and Sexual Fidelity,” was authored by Samudera Fadlilah Jamaluddin and Fakira Inayatulobani.
