Religiosity and Group-Binding Moral Concerns

Abstract

Research by Graham and Haidt (2010) suggests that beliefs, rituals, and other social aspects of religion establish moral communities. As such, they suggest religion is most strongly associated with the group-focused “binding” moral foundations of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Two studies tested this hypothesis, investigating the role of political orientation in these relationships. These studies supported our hypothesis that general religiosity is positively associated with each of the group-focused moral foundations, even when controlling for the role of political orientation. Further, we find religious and political orientations interact such that low-religious political liberals are least likely to endorse group-focused moral intuitions. Results are discussed in a moral foundations framework and consider the role of religiosity's association with political orientation and group-focused moral foundations.

The relationship between individual differences in religion, religious primes, and the moral foundations

“…Our results are similar to previous research that found relationships between general/conservative measures of religiousness and the binding foundations (Harnish et al, 2018; K. A. Johnson et al, 2016; Koleva et al, 2012; LaBouff et al, 2017; Piazza & Landy, 2013), but null relationships between progressive religiousness and binding foundations (K. A. Johnson et al, 2016).…”

“…In partial support of previous research (e.g. Harnish et al, 2018; Krull, 2016; LaBouff et al, 2017), we found that many of our religious variables were positively correlated with the binding foundations of loyalty, authority, and purity, as well as with the individualizing foundation of care. Reliability for the moral foundation scales was again low, but the patterns of correlational results mirrored what we found in Study 1.…”

“…Although there may be other important moral domains beyond the five proposed by moral foundations theory (Graham et al, 2013), the foundations of care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and purity have been particularly useful in predicting differences in moral judgment between religious and non-religious individuals. Variables such as religious attendance (Di Battista et al, 2018; Koleva et al, 2012; Mooijman et al, 2018) and general religiousness (LaBouff et al, 2017; Piazza & Landy, 2013; Yalçındağ et al, 2019) are positively correlated with binding foundations and less consistently but negatively correlated with individualizing foundations (Koleva et al, 2012; Yalçındağ et al, 2019). This suggests that general religiousness is related to the binding foundations, especially purity.…”

Heightened religiosity proactively and reactively responds to the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe: Novel insights from the parasite-stress theory of sociality and the behavioral immune system theory

“…Religion is a drive of moral judgments ( Hone et al, 2020 , Kirchmaier et al, 2018 , Minton et al, 2019 , Willard et al, 2020 ), and heightened religiosity promoted group-focused moral foundations ( LaBouff et al, 2017 , Minton et al, 2019 ). As prioritizing the group-focused moral foundations of ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity reflects a reactive BIS ( Makhanova et al, 2019 , Van Leeuwen et al, 2017 , Van Leeuwen et al, 2012 ), the morality perspective highlights the anti-pathogen function of heightened religiosity ( Fincher and Thornhill, 2008 , Fincher and Thornhill, 2012 , Ma and Ye, 2021b ).…”

“…While the ingroup/loyalty and authority/respect moral foundations provide insights into the in-group bias of heightened religiosity ( Fincher & Thornhill, 2012 ), the purity/sanctity moral foundation serves as a core basis for the anti-pathogen function of heightened religiosity ( Fincher and Thornhill, 2008 , Fincher and Thornhill, 2012 , Ma and Ye, 2021b ). The moral foundation of purity/sanctity underlies the psychology of the “ desire to keep the body and mind ‘clean’ or pure ” ( LaBouff et al, 2017 ). Thus, purity/sanctity regulates people’s biological disgust ( Horberg et al, 2009 ) and contamination concerns regarding bodily cleanliness ( Preston & Ritter, 2012 ).…”