Religiosity and Deviance: Toward a Contingency Theory of Constraining Effects

The relationship between culture and tax evasion across countries: Additional evidence and extensions

“…Religions socialize people in such a way as to restrain deviant beliefs and behavior: they provide negative definitions of deviance (e.g., thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill). Moreover, religions often deter deviance and encourage anti-deviant attitudes by way of threats of eternal damnation, time spent in purgatory and so on (see e.g., Tittle & Welch, 1983). In terms of tax evasion, the Christian scriptures openly condemn it (Grasmick, Bursik, & Cochran, 1991, 255).…”

Ethics and Religion: An Empirical Test of a Multidimensional Model

“…Most religions and the consequent religious beliefs incorporate strong teachings about appropriate ethical behaviors (Tittle and Welch, 1983;Weaver and Agle, 2002). For instance, the Ten Commandments provide guidelines about what is considered unethical.…”

“…Similar to our arguments regarding the cognitive component, we also expect spiritual commitment to relate negatively to justifications of unethical behavior. Given that most religions and religious groups tend to emphasize and promote moral behaviors (Tittle and Welch, 1983), it follows that if people are emotionally attached, they are more likely to have internalized values consistent with promotion of ethical behaviors. Such strong religious feelings should discourage deviant behaviors (and unethical behaviors) as it would require strong believers to confront behaviors potentially conflicting with their ideals.…”

“…However, despite the above conceptual tie between religions and ethics, research has provided mixed conclusions on the relationship (Tittle and Welch, 1983;Weaver and Agle, 2002). For instance, some studies have found no difference between religious and non-religious individuals on unethical behaviors such as dishonesty and cheating (e.g., Hood et al, 1996;Smith et al, 1975), while a negative relationship was found between use of illegal substances and individual religiousness (Khavari and Harmon, 1982).…”

“…Thus, in addition to issues of generalizability to wider populations, Tittle and Welch (1983) have also warned that student samples should be viewed with skepticism given the role of religion at such ages. Research is needed using more comprehensive samples that target representative populations in terms of age and culture.…”