Do agnostics resemble atheists or religionists on morality? Evidence from 33 European countries of different religious heritage
(2026) The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion — (2026)
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- The major moral differences between religious and nonreligious people comprise stronger endorsement of, primarily, traditional/restrictive morality regarding family, sexuality, and purity, and, secondarily, ingroup prosociality/cooperation. Research indicates that agnostics differ from atheists (and religionists) in personality and other characteristics. Does this extend to morality? We analyzed European Values Survey 2017 data from 33 countries of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim heritage and compared, through multilevel analyses, agnostics to religionists and atheists in moral attitudes (total N = 35,560). The latter comprised traditional/restrictive morality (preservation of traditional family and natural life processes, “hygienic” morality, restrictive sexuality), civic morality (citizen’s obligations), and death penalty. Across religious-cultural zones, and beyond differences between them, agnostics, in traditional morality, were midway between the “restrictive” religionists and the “permissive” atheists but resemble atheists in being more permissive than religionists on civic morality. The role of secularization and agnostics’ personality in understanding the above findings is discussed.
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Karim, M., Clobret, M., & Saroglou, V. (2026). Do agnostics resemble atheists or religionists on morality? Evidence from 33 European countries of different religious heritage. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. Accepted/in-press. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2025.2594850 (Original work published 2026)