Psychological factors influencing religious congregation members’ reporting of alleged sexual abuse

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe sexual abuse of children within religious institutions has become a topic of increasing public concern in recent decades. However, to date there has been little in the way of psychological analyses of the processes by which congregation members judge the credibility of alleged abuses, or whether they would intend to report such allegations to the police. In this study, we examined the roles of ingroup identity, moral foundations, and social dominance orientation on reporting intentions and allegation credibility assessments among Church of England congregation members (n = 454) and non-religious controls (n = 457). While there were few predictors of reporting intentions, we found that churchgoers were consistently more sceptical of allegations of abuse, with these trends being differentially moderated by ingroup identification, the endorsement of various moral impulses, and anti-egalitarianism. We discuss our data in light of ongoing attempts to improve reporting procedures within the Church.