Religious Orientation and Moral Judgment

Islamic Personal Religion and Moral Reasoning in Social Justice and Equality: The Evidence From Indonesian College Students

“…Efforts to explain this phenomenon have led many researchers to attend to the concept and theory of religious orientation, attempting to determine whether moral reasoning is a function of intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious orientations (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993). Sapp and others (Sapp & Gladding, 1989;Sapp & Jones, 1986), for instance, found an inverse link between intrinsic religiosity and principled moral reasoning, whereas quest orientation was noted as positively related to principled moral reasoning. Ernsberger and Manaster (1981) also studied the connection.…”

“…Another caveat lies in the wellestablished research finding that those with conservative religious faith generally lag behind in Kohlbergian moral development regardless of their religions, obtaining lower P scores on the test than do nonreligious populations (Rest, 1986;Richards, 1991). The average P scores of orthodox Christians, for example, tend to be in the 30s, which is only slightly greater than the one from the Muslim respondents (Glover, 1997;Ji & Ibrahim, 2007a;Richards, 1991;Sapp & Jones, 1986). Put otherwise, the present respondents appear to be less principled in moral reasoning as compared to their non-Muslim, nonconservative counterparts in the United States.…”

“…Accordingly, the level of principled moral reasoning is here tentatively presumed to correlate inversely with that of intrinsic religiosity, taking the side of the favored conceptualization of intrinsic religiosity and Kohlberg's levels of morality (Sapp & Gladding, 1989;Sapp & Jones, 1986). Seeing religion as an end in itself, intrinsically oriented people are likely to take the views of the religion to heart and embrace its tenants through commitment; such commitment may be more compatible with the attributes of conformity to institutional norms and submission to authorities found in Kohlberg's definition of conventional level moral reasoning than with his principled level reasoning.…”

An Empirical Study of Future Professionals’ Intentions to Engage in Unethical Business Practices

“…Religiousness has been used as a plausible explanation for the ethical attitudes and judgements among college students in previous studies (Sapp and Gladding 1989;Sapp and Jones 1986). Thus, we will present our third hypothesis:…”

The Effects of Commitment to Moral Self-improvement and Religiosity on Ethics of Business Students

“…However, the research findings regarding this relationship have been equivocal, with the relationship being described as ''something of a roller coaster ride'' (Hood et al, 1996, p. 371). Some researchers report a positive relationship between religiosity and moral judgment and moral conduct, while others conclude that religiosity is not a predictor of cognitive moral development or ethical behaviors (e.g., see Sapp and Jones, 1986;Weaver and Agle, 2002, for a review).…”