Variability and Belief in Karma: Perceived Life Variability Polarizes Perceptions of Behavior-Outcome Valence Consistency.

Liying Jiao, Zhen Guo, Jinzhe Zhao, Yan Xu

Abstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0cells of the map it votes in

0citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Liying JiaoDepartment of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.

Zhen GuoSchool of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China.

Jinzhe ZhaoBeijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.

Yan XuBeijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.

Funding

Educational Teaching Reform and Research Project of Beijing Forestry University BJFU2023JY066Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities BLX202381Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education 24YJC190012

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

This article explores people's karma belief on the subjective probabilities of future chance events and how perceived life variability influences the expectations of behavior-outcome relationships through three studies. Study 1 used two experiments (Study 1a and 1b) and found that individuals believed that there is a causal association between moral actions and future experiences. People tended to make karmic forecasts that predicted a luckier future (reflected in probability judgments of lucky and unfortunate chance events) for a person who behaved morally than for one who behaved immorally. Finally, we found that individuals rely more heavily on belief in karma (i.e., stronger beliefs about the valence consistency of behaviors and outcomes) when they perceive greater life variability in their lives (Study 2), suggesting that the perceived life variability is a factor in using karma to make predictions.

Indexed as

future experienceskarmamoral behaviorperceived life variability

Identifiers

PMID40282022

DOI10.3390/bs15040400

PMCPMC12024288

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.