Social identity and the true believer: Responses to threatened self‐stereotypes among the intrinsically religious

Abstract

That religion is an impactful social category has often been assumed but seldom tested. Based on social identity and self-categorization theories, it is argued that devout religious commitment reflects, at least in part, an individual's motivation to engage in religious self-stereotyping (i.e. to perceive oneself as an exemplary religious group member). In order to test this analysis, individuals scoring high or low on a measure of intrinsic religious orientation received false feedback that either threatened or bolstered their self-perceptions on a dimension of behaviour that was either important or not important to religious group membership. As expected, intrinsic orientation predicted increased religious self-stereotyping only when feedback was threatening and important to religious group membership; affective and behavioural indices revealed a similar pattern. Implications for the social identity/self-categorization literature, and for theory development in the psychology of religion, are subsequently discussed.

Humble Self-Enhancement: Religiosity and the Better-than-Average Effect

“…Previous work on religiosity and selfenhancement has often used a more sophisticated measure of religious orientation that distinguishes "intrinsic" religiosity from other orientations. Experimental work on religious selfstereotyping and similar mechanisms has specifically dealt with intrinsic religiosity (Burris & Jackson, 2000;Burris & Navara, 2002). We therefore expect similar findings for a measure of intrinsic religiosity.…”

“…A plausible mechanism is that religious individuals are motivated to perceive themselves as exemplary religious group members (Burris & Jackson, 2000). This mechanism is here labeled religious self-stereotyping as it implies inferring judgments about oneself from the stereotype of the religious group to which one belongs.…”

What Do We Think About Muslims? The Validity of Westerners' Implicit Theories About the Associations Between Muslims' Religiosity, Religious Identity, Aggression Potential, and Attitudes Toward Terrorism

“…Specifi cally, for both Ghanaian Muslims and Christians as well as for Canadian Christians, religious fundamentalism was positively correlated with right-wing authoritarianism and positively associated with negative attitudes toward homosexuals (see also Hunsberger, 1996). In addition, Burris and Jackson (2000) have demonstrated that, for a sample of Christians, intrinsic religious orientation was strongly correlated with religious group identifi cation. Intrinsically religious participants, whose religious self-perceptions concerning religious group membership were threatened, showed increased religious self-stereotyping.…”

Fitting in with the flock: Social attractiveness as a mechanism for well‐being in religious groups

“…Recent studies have successfully applied the self-categorization framework to religious groups. Burris and Jackson (2000) found that an intrinsic motivational orientation toward one's religious group predicted intensified commitment to the group in response to unfavorable feedback about how well one has met the group's behavioral standards. Applying this framework to well-being, strength of identification with the religious group has been found both to mediate some of the effects of social support on health (Krause & Wulff, 2005), and to mediate some of the effects of religious attendance on psychological well-being (Greenfield & Marks, 2007).…”