Moral dilemmas—like the ‘‘trolley problem’’ or real-world examples like capital punishment—result from a conflict between consequentialist and deontological intuitions (i.e., whether ends justify means). The authors contend that people often resolve such moral conflict by aligning factual beliefs about consequences of acts with evaluations of the act’s inherent morality (i.e., morality independ...

After a brief introduction to psychology of religion as a scientific discipline, this article reviews psychological theories that propose explanations of religion as an individual and social reality, and provides information from recent empirical literature that, at least partially, confirms these theories. The theoretical and empirical evidence presented here encompasses a variety of psycholog...

Traditional conservative arguments against the possibility of major moral progress or fundamental institutional reform relied on under-evidenced assumptions about the limitations of human nature. A number of contemporary thinkers from a variety of disciplines have attempted to fill this empirical gap in the conservative argument by appealing to evolutionary theory. These “evoconservatives” infe...

This article surveys the current pervasiveness of the phenomenon of sacred trees in the Holy Land, with special reference to the official attitudes of local religious leaders and the attitudes of Muslims in comparison with the Druze as well as in monotheism vs. polytheism. Field data regarding the reasons for the sanctification of trees and the common beliefs and rituals related to them are des...

Childbearing women and infants in developing countries continue to experience unacceptably high rates of mortality and morbidity in spite of targeted initiatives to address the problem. The aim of this study was to identify the beliefs and rituals of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in one indigenous Guatemalan community to better understand the cultural influences on perinatal care practice...