Religion and Punishment: Opposing Influences of Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy on Reactions to Unintentional Acts

We hypothesize that two distinct facets of religiosity—orthodoxy (an emphasis on belief) and orthopraxy (an emphasis on behavior)—predict differential sensitivity to an actor’s intent when making moral judgments. Participants judged actors who performed misdeeds intentionally or unintentionally. In Study 1, high orthopraxy predicted harsher judgments of the unintentional actor, while high orthodoxy predicted more lenient judgments. In Study 2, we investigated a potential explanation for these effects, priming participants with either an “action focus” or a “thought focus.” Action-focused participants judged the unintentional actor more harshly than did thought-focused participants. In Study 3, participants from an orthopraxic tradition (Hinduism) judged the unintentional actor more harshly than did those from an orthodox tradition (Protestantism). These findings contribute to a growing literature on the multifaceted nature of religion. They also carry broader implications for understanding people’s responses to actions as a function of the actor’s mental state.