ABSTRACT
When things go bad, when situations go awry, when people face crises and the urgent need to protect and survive is preeminent, it is enlightening to note the attention paid to ethics and spirituality. As the multitude of news reports documents, during crises most individuals break the constraints ethics has placed upon their behavior and freely rationalize actions they would, under calmer circumstances, denounce as immoral. This orientation is consistent across all socioeconomic classes, although the type of unethical behavior varies considerably. Yet seemingly incongruously, during times of great calamity, individuals of lower socioeconomic status tend to deepen their need to connect with others, to strengthen the bond they have with humankind, or the universe, or a deity. This emphasis upon spirituality in crisis tends to take the form of increased religiosity, a behavior that is not seen to the same degree, if at all, among those of higher socioeconomic class. A very few individuals seek spirituality separate from religion following a crisis, and whether this orientation is correlated to socioeconomic status is unexamined. Thus, in times of crisis most individuals across the socioeconomic spectrum will toss ethics aside while those of lower socioeconomic status (SES) concurrently fortify their spiritual needs through religion, and a scant few with unclear socioeconomic affiliation will seek spirituality separate from religion. Perhaps no other set of circumstances that humans face accentuates this difference between these concepts and provides such a clear example of the long-established positive correlation between lack of ethicality and increased religiosity, and makes the clear distinction between religion and spirituality. Ethics in practice appears to be a luxury to which people aspire after the basic needs are satisfied, and religion the inverse, at least among those of lower SES, where it is something that is deepened when the basic needs are more acutely felt. The evidence for and implications of this relationship are explored here.
