Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine how religious commitment impacts the neural
processing of morally laden information. Event-related potentials were recorded while 35
participants, scoring either high or low on the Religious Commitment Inventory-10, read
scenarios describing a social interaction with one of three endings: moral violations,
conventional violations, or neutral acts. Participants judged all scenarios as either “OK”
or “Not OK.” Right brain hemisphere amplitudes were significantly larger than the left
hemisphere for participants with high religious commitment. This finding suggests those
with high religious commitment may process morally laden stimuli less abstractly and
more veridically than those with low religious commitment.