A re-investigating of the religious orientation-moral reasoning relationship: a relational developmental systems perspective

This study re-investigates the relationship between religious orientation and Kohlberg’s moral reasoning among students at a midwestern (USA) university. Multiple regression analyses revealed that quest-oriented religiosity was significantly positively related to principled moral reasoning, as consistently found in previous studies, while intrinsic religious orientation showed no relation to principled moral reasoning. We discuss our findings through a lens of relational developmental systems theory, suggesting that a more integrative measure is needed to better understand the complex relationship between religious orientation and moral reasoning.