"And who is my neighbor?" II: Quest religion as a source of universal compassion

Are those with a high-quest orientation to religion less likely to help a p erson if that person's behavior violets their values of open-mindedness and tolerance? If so, is it because they have antipathy toward the person or t oward the behavior? To answer these questions, sixty undergraduate women we re given the opportunity to help either of two same-sex peers win a monetar y prize. About one peer, they knew nothing; from the other, they had receiv ed two self-disclosing notes. The first note either did or did not reveal t hat the discloser was intolerant of gays; the second revealed that the disc loser wanted the money for an activity that either would or would not promo te intolerance of gays. Participants scoring high on measures of quest reli gion helped the intolerant discloser less than the discloser who was not in tolerance when their help would promote intolerance; they did not help the intolerant discloser less when their help help would not promote intoleranc e. These results suggest that a high-quest orientation is associated with a ntipathy toward the value-violating behavior (intolerance), not toward the value-violating person. The scope of the associated compassion seems relati vely broad.