The Moral Refuge Model: Moral Foundations as a Mediator between Uncertainty, Religiosity, and Life Satisfaction Among Muslims in Türkiye.

Résumé

While prior research has extensively documented the distinct roles of intolerance of uncertainty, religiosity, and moral foundations in predicting life satisfaction, their concurrent structural dynamics have remained largely underexplored. To address this gap, the present study proposes and tests the integrated Moral Refuge Model. This model investigates how reliance on moral foundations mediates these associations through two theoretically distinct routes: a seeker path, where intolerance of uncertainty drives the need for moral structure, and a provider path, where religiosity supplies and reinforces this moral salience. Data were collected from a sample of Muslims in Türkiye. Given the highly correlated, holistic nature of morality within this cultural context, a composite moral foundations score was utilized. Path analysis revealed a critical suppression dynamic regarding intolerance of uncertainty: Although intolerance of uncertainty demonstrated a strong negative direct link to life satisfaction, its indirect seeker association through moral foundations was positive. Theoretically, this suppression demonstrates that when faced with the aversive state of uncertainty, individuals do not merely experience distress; they actively retreat into a generalized, structure-providing moral architecture as a compensatory psychological refuge. Furthermore, the religiosity-driven provider pathway was also indirectly and positively associated with life satisfaction. Ultimately, these findings highlight the unified, protective function of moral clarity in filtering out uncertainty distress and channeling religious coping into life satisfaction.