The role of religiosity in ultimate and immanent justice reasoning

•Religiosity predicts immanent justice (IJ) and ultimate justice (UJ) reasoning.•Relation between victim’s moral value and IJ reasoning depends on religiosity.•Deservingness mediates IJ reasoning more strongly at higher levels of religiosity.

Religious teachings endorse notions of ultimate justice (a misfortune is compensated in the long run) and immanent justice (a misfortune is caused by previous misdeeds). The current research examined whether individual differences in observers’ religiosity moderated ultimate and immanent justice reasoning in response to an unfortunate accident that occurred to either a good or bad person. Results showed that participants higher in religiosity perceived greater ultimate justice for the victim regardless of his moral worth. Participants higher in religiosity engaged in greater immanent justice reasoning when the victim was bad, but not when he was good. Perceived deservingness of the accident mediated the effect of the victim’s moral worth on immanent justice attributions more strongly among participants higher in religiosity.