Bound together for God and country: The binding moral foundations link unreflectiveness with religiosity and political conservatism

Difficulty-as-Improvement: The Courage to Keep Going in the Face of Life's Difficulties

When a task or goal is hard to think about or do, people can infer that it is a waste of their time (difficulty-as-impossibility) or valuable to them (difficulty-as-importance). Separate from chosen tasks and goals, life can present unchosen difficulties. Building on identity-based motivation theory, people can see these as opportunities for self-betterment (difficulty-as-improvement). People use this language when they recall or communicate about difficulties (autobiographical memories, Study 1; "Common Crawl" corpus, Study 2). Our difficulty mindset measures are culture-general (Australia, Canada, China, India, Iran, New Zealand, Turkey, the United States, Studies 3-15, N = 3,532). People in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD)-er countries slightly agree with difficulty-as-improvement. Religious, spiritual, conservative people, believers in karma and a just world, and people from less-WEIRD countries score higher. People who endorse difficulty-as-importance see themselves as conscientious, virtuous, and leading lives of purpose. So do endorsers of difficulty-as-improvement-who also see themselves as optimists (all scores lower for difficulty-as-impossibility endorsers).

Moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction

The study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the relationships among moralities, cultural fit and life satisfaction. Data are drawn from a representative sample of Türkiye, a country with a permanent record of low well-being scores and indications of polarisation over moral values. Consistent with the hypotheses, binding morality is found to have a strong overall positive effect on life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly via cultural fit. Additionally, results substantiate the prediction that individualising morality will be associated with diminished life satisfaction. Nonetheless, analyses regarding cultural fit exhibit mixed results and should be interpreted with caution. Findings are discussed within the context of the literature and in relation to sociopolitical leanings currently observed in Türkiye.

Emerging Adult Risky Sexual Behavior: The Influence of Perceived Parental Religiosity and Perceived Parent-Child Relationship Quality in the USA

In the southern USA, where religiosity is higher than in other parts of the country, many researchers have questioned if the religiosity of parents plays a role in emerging adults' risky sexual behavior (RSB). Specifically, research suggests that certain aspects of religiosity (i.e., conservatism) are especially detrimental when examining RSB. In the current study, college students (N = 585, 65.5% women, 69.2% White, 25.0% Black) completed the following self-report measures: the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits - Short Form, the Parental Environment Questionnaire, and the Student Sexual Risks Scale. Results of path analysis (reported statistics have p < .05) indicated that perceived maternal relationship quality had a significant negative association with RSB in emerging adult women, β = -.27, and men, β = -.20; perceived paternal relationship quality also associated negatively with RSB in women, β = -.12, and men, β = -.20. Of all the parental religiosity variables, only perceived maternal conservatism had a significant effect, where it demonstrated a positive association with RSB in women, β = .34, and men, β = -.20. These results suggest that perceived parent-child relationship quality and perceived maternal conservative religiosity influence emerging adult RSB. This study presents novel insight into the specific aspects of perceived parental religiosity that, at least in the current study, are found to influence RSB.

The amoral atheist? A cross-national examination of cultural, motivational, and cognitive antecedents of disbelief, and their implications for morality

There is a widespread cross-cultural stereotype suggesting that atheists are untrustworthy and lack a moral compass. Is there any truth to this notion? Building on theory about the cultural, (de)motivational, and cognitive antecedents of disbelief, the present research investigated whether there are reliable similarities as well as differences between believers and disbelievers in the moral values and principles they endorse. Four studies examined how religious disbelief (vs. belief) relates to endorsement of various moral values and principles in a predominately religious (vs. irreligious) country (the U.S. vs. Sweden). Two U.S. M-Turk studies (Studies 1A and 1B, N = 429) and two large cross-national studies (Studies 2-3, N = 4,193), consistently show that disbelievers (vs. believers) are less inclined to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion (the binding moral foundations). By contrast, only minor differences between believers and disbelievers were found in endorsement of other moral values (individualizing moral foundations, epistemic rationality). It is also demonstrated that presumed cultural and demotivational antecedents of disbelief (limited exposure to credibility-enhancing displays, low existential threat) are associated with disbelief. Furthermore, these factors are associated with weaker endorsement of the binding moral foundations in both countries (Study 2). Most of these findings were replicated in Study 3, and results also show that disbelievers (vs. believers) have a more consequentialist view of morality in both countries. A consequentialist view of morality was also associated with another presumed antecedent of disbelief-analytic cognitive style.

Religious moral righteousness over care: a review and a meta-analysis

Does religion enhance an 'extended' morality? We review research on religiousness and Schwartz's values, Haidt's moral foundations (through a meta-analysis of 45 studies), and deontology versus consequentialism (a review of 27 studies). Instead of equally encompassing prosocial (care for others) and other values (duties to the self, the community, and the sacred), religiosity implies a restrictive morality: endorsement of values denoting social order (conservation, loyalty, and authority), self-control (low autonomy and self-expansion), and purity more strongly than care; and, furthermore, a deontological, non-consequentialist, righteous orientation, that could result in harm to (significant) others. Religious moral righteousness is highest in fundamentalism and weakens in secular countries. Only spirituality reflects an extended morality (care, fairness, and the binding foundations). Evolutionarily, religious morality seems to be more coalitional and 'hygienic' than caring.