TOO TIRED TO CARE: RELIGIOUS ORIENTATIONS’ RELATIONSHIP WITH EGO-DEPLETED EMPATHY

Psychological research into various aspects of religiosity, empathy, and self-regulation has grown throughout the years. Using Wulff’s (1997) literal verses symbolic bipolar dimension of religiosity, Duriez (2004) found that participants who identified as tending to possess symbolic beliefs regarding religious symbols reported the ability to emphasize with others more than those adhering to increasingly literal interpretations of religious themes. Watterson and Giesler (2012) found that individuals who tended to have higher levels of religiosity appeared to engage longer in a self-regulatory task than those who showed lower levels of religiosity. Researchers interested in self-regulation have found individuals who had undergone an ego-depletion task were increasingly inhibited in their ability to emphasize with other individuals (DeWall, Baumeister, Gailliot, & Maner, 2008). In light of previous research, the current study sought to understand the underpinnings between the literal verses symbolic dimension of religiosity in the context of self-regulation and empathy, though all analyses were non-significant