Research: Religion, likelihood of action, and the morality of mentality

Protestants, relative to Jews, consider thoughts about immoral actions to be immoral and more likely to lead to action. In Study 1, controlling for agreement that thoughts lead to actions did not eliminate the effect of religion on agreement that thoughts have moral status. Protestants also considered thoughts about cheating on an exam (which Jews and Protestants consider equally likely) and thoughts about having an affair with Julia Roberts (an unlikely event) more morally relevant than Jews (Studies 2 & 3), The studies suggest that likelihood of action differences are only a partial account of Jewish-Protestant differences in the moral relevance of thoughts.