Evangelical Christians score higher than non-evangelicals on public, but not on private, commitments to morality

ABSTRACT

Are distinctly elevated, external, public commitments and displays of morality accompanied by distinctly elevated internal, private commitments to morality? A nationally representative U.S. dataset was used to help answer this question. Evangelical Christians (N = 411) scored higher than non-evangelicals (N = 942) on a measure of commitment to external, public displays of morality. However, the group differences in scores on a measure of internal, private commitments to morality were much smaller and were not statistically significant. Item response theory analyses indicated no measurement bias for the two groups, suggesting that the observed group difference and similarity on the measures of public and private morality commitments were real. Public and private commitments to morality are potentially independent at both the individual and group levels.

Plain Language Summary

Are public commitments and displays of morality accompanied by higher levels of internal, private commitments to morality? This study compared 411 Evangelical Christians with 942 non-evangelicals. It was found that while evangelicals scored higher on a measure of commitment to external, public displays of morality, there were no group differences in scores on a measure of internal, private commitments to morality. Public and private commitments to morality are thus sometimes relatively independent of one another.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral identity
• morality
• religion
• evangelical Christianity

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and their collaborators for conducting the Measuring Morality project. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the Kenan Institute, their collaborators, or Duke University. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The raw data for all of the analyses are available for public access at https://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Descriptions/MORALITY.asp.

Ethical approval

Ethics approval for the data collection was obtained by the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brian P. O’Connor

Brian P. O’Connor is professor in the department of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan, in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. His interests are in social and personality psychology and statistical methods. For more information, see https://oconnor-psych.ok.ubc.ca/boconnor.html

Paul K. Lutz

Paul K. Lutz is a psychology graduate student at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His interests include ecological momentary assessment methods, pro-environmental behaviour, climate change anxiety, and well-being. For more information, see https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Paul-K-Lutz-2155420110