Religiosity and the Justification of Unethical Behaviour: Evidence from the World Values Survey

Religiosity is often assumed to restrain unethical conduct; however, the evidence varies depending on which facet of religiosity is measured. This study examines the unique associations between five religiosity indicators (Importance of God, Belief in God, Religious service attendance, Personal prayer, and Self-described religiosity) and a five-item index of unethical behaviour permissiveness (justifying claiming undue benefits, fare evasion, stealing, tax cheating, and accepting a bribe). Using pooled cross-sectional data from the World Values Survey, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and ordinary least squares regressions were calculated. Descriptive statistics revealed a wide variation in religiosity, with 60.1% of respondents declaring themselves religious and 47.0% indicating that they pray at least once per day. Non-zero acceptance of unethical acts was observed, with a mean of 2.36 (SD = 1.68) on a 10-point scale, providing sufficient variance for correlations and regression analyses. Correlations were statistically significant, showing that higher religiosity was associated with lower permissiveness toward unethical behaviours. However, these correlations were practically negligible. Religiosity explained less than 1% of the variance in all cases, and regression analyses yielded similar results. Previous research has reported small relationships between religiosity and ethical behaviour, but in this study, the effect is practically insignificant. These counterintuitive findings highlight several methodological constraints, of which reliance on linear regression may be the most important. Future research using quantitative approaches to investigate these associations further is recommended.