Religious Service Attendance, Moral Foundations, God Concept, and In-Group Giving: Testing Moderated Mediation

Abstract

Studies demonstrate that religious people are more likely to donate money to charity, but these donations are more often given to in-group members (e.g., religiously affiliated organizations). Few studies test mechanisms by which religious attendance affects the bias toward in-group giving. Moral foundations are proposed as mediators of the association between religious attendance and the in-group giving bias, and traditional God concept is proposed as a moderator of the relation between attendance and moral foundations. Data were collected from Christians in the USA. (N = 311), and participants were given an opportunity to donate their payment to Christian (in-group), Muslim (out-group), or secular charities. The traditional God concept variable moderated the indirect effect of the fairness/reciprocity foundation in explaining the relation between religious attendance and giving. People with highly traditional God concepts and higher religious attendance reported higher fairness/reciprocity scores, and they gave less to in-group charities and more to out-group charities.