Religiosity, Values and Violence

The relationship between religiosity and violence is one of the most controversial issues of our time. In particular, Muslims and violence are at constant agenda of the media. Religiosity affects both the values and violence attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between religiosity, values and approval of violence. Data was collected from university students in Turkey, who are 99 percent Muslim country. Schwartz Values Survey and Violence Culture Scales were used as data collection instrument. Our early findings are as follows: The relations of religiosity and values are consistent with the international academic literature. Practicing Muslims endorse conformity, tradition, security and benevolence more than skeptics/unbelievers. On the other hand, skeptics/unbelievers value more universalism, self-direction and hedonism than practicing / non-practicing Muslims. However, there was no statistically significant relationship between religiosity and violence endorsement.