Morality of Mentality and Culture: a Registered Replication and Cross-Cultural Extension

Previous work has established that religious groups vary in the perceived moral status of “thought” versus behavior, with Protestants negatively evaluating people who entertain immoral thoughts more harshly than Jews. This work provided early evidence that religion is important in evaluating moral status. However, in the decades since this work, methodological and theoretical advances have suggested that a second glance might be necessary. In this Registered Report, we conducted a direct and conceptual replication of these earlier findings, including a cross-cultural extension in five countries, to investigate the influences of religious and national cultures on the relevance of immoral thoughts versus behaviors in evaluating the moral status of others. We replicate the original finding that American Protestants (but not Jews) consider immoral thoughts as negatively as actions. We also observe substantial variation across cultures and religions, such that Americans were generally less condemning of immoral thoughts than members of the same religion in other countries. These results provide clues for further theorizing about how both country and religion shape moral judgment.