Correlates of Moral Orientations in Contemporary Societies: Case of People Married or in a Stable Relationship in Poland

Usually, people use different sets of rules that organize their moral behavior. Social scientists introduced several concepts of moral orientations supporting a better understanding of the underpinnings of moral behavior, which are the dignity-related, prosocial, reciprocal, and egoistic moral orientations. The study presents the sociological quantitative analysis of prevalence of the moral orientations in Polish society based on a survey carried out in Poland at the end of 2023 on a statistically representative sample of 1082 adults married or in an informal partnership. Various sociocultural predictors such as self-identification with religious faith, self-esteem, materialism, and classic demographic features (age, gender) were tested as predictors of the moral orientations. Comparing our findings to the latest available results, thought-provoking regularities are discovered—individual features like self-esteem and religiosity are stronger predictors in the case of the dignity-related and prosocial moral orientations. The full array of tested factors is visible particularly in the case of reciprocal moral orientation, followed by the egoistic one. The article attempts to suggest a further discussion on the possible future scenarios of morality in modern societies.