Relating compassion, spirituality, and scandal before unjust suffering: an empirical assessment
Abstract: Recent studies in the field of cognitive science of religion have proposed a connection between religious beliefs, theory of mind, and prosocial behaviour. Theory of mind appears as related to empathy and compassion, and both to a special sensitivity towards unjust suffering, which could trigger a religious crisis, as has often happened and is revealed in the “theodicy question”. To test such relationships, an exploratory survey based on questionnaire has being designed and applied to a teenagers sample. The collected data point to a more complex interaction, less linear, and depending more on cultural factors than to cognitive structures. In general, compassion and scandal before unjust suffering appear as quite related, but both features are less related to religious or spiritual perception.