Political Identities, Religious Identity, and the Pattern of Moral Foundations among Conservative Christians

Abstract

Consistent with social identity theory, political identity was strongly linked to conservative Christians’ morality represented by the Moral Foundation Theory model. Participants identifying as Democrats scored significantly higher than did those identifying as Republicans on the individualizing foundations of care and fairness but significantly lower than Republicans on the binding foundations of authority, loyalty, and purity. In addition, political identity differentially related to the two liberty subfoundations consistent with salient political party themes. Hierarchical regression analyses identified political identity as a consistent predictor of all moral foundations beyond the variance accounted for by unique contributions of gender and education. RS factors, primarily fundamentalism, contributed additional incremental value to predicting the three binding but not the individualizing foundations, which suggests a congruent dual identity (political, religious) for Republicans that does not hold for Democrats.