The interplay between Religious Orientation, Moral Foundations, Empathy, and Compassion among Turkish Muslims

Many individuals believe in religion, in particular; the existence of God and afterlife. Psychologists has been investigating religions within the scope of religious practice and prejudice. The researchers discovered that they way people perceive, interpret and behave in accordance with their religion is affected by religious motives which varies from person to person. These religious motives are then coined as “Intrinsic”, “Extrinsic”, “Quest”, and “Fundamentalist” Religious Orientations and have been studied in relation with prejudice. Furthermore, more recent studies have been examining the interrelation and the direction between Religious Orientations and Moral Foundations Theory which includes five dimensions: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degredation. Previous studies revealed that different type of Religious Orientations are correlated with endorsement of different dimensions of Moral Foundations mainly among Christian communities. For instance, “Fundamentalism” is positively correlated with specific foundations. There is also growing interest in interaction between Religious Orientations on Moral Foundations by using God Concept related primes (i.e., A/B God) among Christians. However, no research has pointed out the interaction of empathy, compassion, and social attitudes in addition to the abovementioned variables. The aim of the study was to examine the interplay between Religious Orientation, Moral Foundations, the concept of God, social attitudes empathy, and compassion among Turkish Muslims. Participants responded the self-report online questionnaire through Google Forms. The study revealed a positive and significant correlation between Benevolent God concept, extrinsic orientation, fundamentalism, moral dimensions of sanctity and empathic concern. However, Authoritarian God concept was negatively correlated with intrinsic orientation, age, and economic status. Benevolent God concept was found to be positively correlated with specific foundations of Moral Foundations and sanctity/degradation. Perspective taking, empathic concern, and compassion were positively correlated with specific foundations of Moral Foundations. Overall, these findings place emphasis on the significant interplay between Religious Orientation, Moral Foundations, the concept of God, social attitudes empathy, and compassion in shaping the moral decisions and Religious Orientation. Keywords: Religious Orientation, the Concept of God, Moral Foundations Theory, Empathy