Religiosity enhances emotion and deontological choice in moral dilemmas

• Religiosity influenced moral choice in dilemmas that involve harming others.
• Seeking religious guidance and social desirability predicted deontological choices.
• Religious feelings predicted negative emotions in these moral dilemmas.

While early psychological theories debated the relation between religiosity and moral decision making, more recent work approached this relation on empirical grounds using multidimensional measures of religiosity and moral dilemmas. The present study investigated the influence of individual differences in religious thoughts and feelings, social desirability and mood on emotions and decisions in moral dilemmas that pit social welfare against harming another person. In order to increase emotional salience, moral dilemmas were framed as personal choices. Results indicated that the tendency to seek religious guidance in everyday life, and social desirability positively predicted deontological choices (i.e., refusing to harm one person in order to save several people). In addition, individual differences in religious feelings positively predicted negative emotion presence in these moral dilemmas. These results highlight the motivational and emotional dimensions of religiosity that influence moral choice and emotional experience in moral dilemmas.