Moral responsibility, personal regulation, and helping others: A cultural approach to moral reasoning in U.S. evangelical Christian cultures

Abstract

The way that people think about moral responsibility and personal freedom in their moral judgments is a complex issue that has been extensively theorized and researched from the perspective of Social Domain Theory. In this study, I offer a cultural reinterpretation of the Social Domain Theory of moral reasoning to examine how judgments about helping others are linked to cultural visions of morality and personal freedom within U.S. evangelical Christian religious cultures. Sixteen parent–child dyads from an evangelical Christian church produced conversations in response to hypothetical vignettes about helping others in need. Mixed quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed conceptions of personal freedom that prioritized personal regulation of self in line with standards for helping actions and desires determined by God, rather than personal determination of correct action and desire. Findings are interpreted and discussed in light of local conceptions of morality, self, and helping. I conclude by using these findings to illuminate the role of culture in constituting domains of social knowledge.