PLoS ONE (Jan 2013)

Moral foundations predict religious orientations in New Zealand.

  • Joseph Bulbulia,
  • Danny Osborne,
  • Chris G Sibley

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080224
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 12
p. e80224

Abstract

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The interplay between religion, morality, and community-making is a core theme across human experience, yet scholars have only recently begun to quantify these links. Drawing on a sample of 1512 self-identified religious - mainly Christian (86.0%) - New Zealanders, we used structural equation modeling to test hypothesized associations between Religious Orientations (Quest, Intrinsic, Extrinsic Personal, Extrinsic Social) and Moral Foundations (Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation). Our results show, for the first time in a comprehensive model, how different ways of valuing communities are associated with different ways of valuing religion.