“Thou shalt not kill”: Religious fundamentalism, conservatism, and rule-based moral processing.

Moral judgments are highly influenced by religious and political ideologies. Here we propose that, in addition to shaping opinions on domain-specific issues, religious and political ideologies also entail distinct approaches to moral reasoning. Specifically, we argue that both Christian fundamentalism and political conservatism are associated with rule-based moral processing. This style of moral processing involves solving moral problems through quick and unequivocal application of previously established moral codes. We test these hypotheses by examining responses to abstract moral dilemmas that pit rule-based moral processing against more flexible consequentialist moral processing outside the political and religious arenas. Across five dilemmas, Christian fundamentalism and political conservatism were associated with the use of rule-based moral processing. Notably, both ideologies continued to predict the use of rule-based moral processing when the other was held constant, suggesting that, while correlated, each makes a unique contribution to the use of rule-based processing in solving moral dilemmas. These findings reflect and expand previous insights into the cognitive traits of political conservatives and religious fundamentalists while offering new avenues for exploring how these traits influence contested moral issues.