Publication details
Religiosity Attenuates the Effect of Empathy on Moral Decision-Making
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| Year of publication | 2026 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Moral decisions of religious people, including responses to norm violations rely on both cognitive and affective mechanisms, yet the latter mechanism is currently understudied. Empathy, the ability to understand and share others’ emotions, has been controversially linked to moral decision-making; yet, it is not clear whether and how it might affect moral decisions of religious individuals. Using moral vignettes, we experimentally manipulated empathy while recording physiological arousal via electrocardiography (ECG). We hypothesized that empathy-driven shifts in moral decision-making would be attenuated in individuals with more rigid moral frameworks, particularly religious individuals. A total of 137 participants (73 nonreligious) completed four task blocks (two high-empathy, two low-empathy), each containing eight vignettes. Empathy systematically predicted the probability of moral decisions, but crucially, this effect was stronger in nonreligious participants (although the interaction was not statistically significant). Drift diffusion modelling further showed that empathy biased the decision process, again more strongly in nonreligious individuals. Moreover, the association between heart rate variability (pNN50) and moral decisions was weaker in religious participants. These findings indicate that empathy exerts a context-dependent influence on moral decision-making, with physiological arousal as a contributing mechanism, while this malleability appears attenuated in religious individuals. |
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