Azim and Stephanie have just had their paper with collaborator Jared Piazza, Morality and the Religious Mind: Why theists and non-theists differ, accepted at Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The short review paper details and explains the differences between religious believers and non-believers on issues of moral decision-making and behavior. The abstract is appended below, and you can read the in press version of the paper here.
*Shariff, A.F., *Piazza, J., & *Kramer, S.R. (in press). Morality and the Religious Mind: Why theists and non-theists differ. Trends in Cognitive Science. *=contributed equally.
Abstract
Religions have come to be intimately tied to morality, and much recent research has shown that theists and non-theists differ in their moral behavior and decision-making along several dimensions. Here we discuss how these empirical trends can be explained by fundamental differences in group commitment, motivations for prosociality, cognitive styles, and meta-ethics. We conclude by elucidating key areas of moral congruence.