Identity Development and Integration of Religious Identities in Gender and Sexual Minority Emerging Adults

Gender and sexual minority (GSM) individuals have been neglected in emerging adulthood research. Further research is needed to understand the seemingly contradictory religious and GSM identities of emerging adults. This study looks at the associations of identity development and identity integration with religious and GSM group activities and well‐being. Identity visibility (outness) is associated with increases in GSM group activity and well‐being. Religious group activity is also associated with increases in well‐being. Religious group activity mediates the relationship between identity integration and well‐being. Implications for practitioners working with GSM individuals dealing with issues of identity integration are discussed.     

Emerging Christianity and Religious Identity

The issue of religious identity is important for understanding the Emerging Church movement (ECM), which is in our view a religious orientation adopted by individuals and groups with a variety of religious identities. ECM participants are often resistant to religious identity labels, even to the point of being reluctant to identify as part of the ECM itself. Coupling this resistance with the growing millennial embrace of the category “religious none,” we use identity theory to argue that the kind of religious change we see with millennials and the Emerging Church is the product of identity change. Using the results of focus groups with millennials in the southern United States, we argue that the potential for religious change around Emerging Church identities lies in a process of shifting. We also identify the potential for religious change among different Emerging Christian identities, taking Peter Rollins as an example of someone who proposes a concept of Christian identity more radical than those espoused by other Emerging Church figures.     

Latino Religious Affiliation and Ethnic Identity

Despite the pervasiveness of Catholicism among Latinos, studies reveal an increasing shift toward Protestantism. Examining the relationship between religion and ethnicity, we explore homeland language use as a core ethnic marker using a survey from the Pew Hispanic Center. Results reveal that Catholic Latinos are significantly more likely to use Spanish at home, even after controlling for other key variables. In response, we posit that Latino Catholicism and Protestantism entail significantly different religiosities in both home and host countries that impact Latino ethnic identification and its markers such as language use. Catholicism displays a higher level of inculturation in the sending country and greater overt institutional acceptance of ethnic culture in host countries. Protestantism in Latin America breaks with localized religiosity and traditions, and U.S. Protestant congregations may de‐emphasize ethnic culture in their theologies and worship. Hence, Latino Catholicism acts as a bridge to homelands and reinforces ethnic salience, thereby supporting continued Spanish use at home. In contrast, Protestants embrace a reorienting religiosity that often presides over ethnic identification, decreasing the salience of homeland cultural markers.     

Group Identity and Conflicting Expectations of the Future in Northern Ireland

Much of the conflict in Northern Ireland is based on investments in one of three opposing political futures possible for the region: remaining part of Britain, joining Ireland, or becoming independent. Speculative scenarios describing each of these futures were randomly assigned to equal numbers of Protestant and Catholic undergraduates in Northern Ireland, and their expectations regarding material and civic improvement for their ingroup and peace and reconciliation between the groups were assessed. Two dimensions of religious identity, measured by the Identity and Public subscales of Luhtanen and Crocker's (1992) Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES), moderated the differences between groups, but only for their expectations of peace and reconciliation. Stronger expectations of improvement for the ingroup were related to higher scores on the Public subscale, regardless of religion or the political future presented. Thus, group identity had a complex, context-dependent relationship to intergroup conflict.     

The Integration of Personal Identity,Religious Identity,and Moral Identity in Emerging Adulthood

The present study investigated the relative roles of identity structure (i.e., personal identity) and identity contents (i.e., religious identity and moral identity) in predicting emerging adults’ prosocial and antisocial behaviors. The sample included 9,495 college students. A variable-centered analysis (path analysis) used personal identity, religious identity, and moral identity as predictors of prosocial and antisocial behavior and tested interactions of personal identity with religious identity and moral identity. Moral identity was the strongest predictor of both behaviors, and religious identity and moral identity both interacted with personal identity in predicting antisocial behavior. A person-centered analysis (latent profile analysis) found three classes: integrated, moral identity–focused, and religious identity–focused, with integrated being most adaptive on both outcomes.     

Implications of Religious Identity Salience,Religious Involvement,and Religious Commitment on Aggression

Social identity can affect perceptions of external threats and the type of response elicited to those threats. Religion is a social identity with eternal group membership and revered beliefs and values; thus, religious identity salience, religious commitment, and religious involvement may have implications for aggressive responses to perceived threats to a person’s religious identity. In a sample of 176 Christians, Muslims, and Jews, we investigated whether people respond aggressively to collective threat as a function of religious identity salience, religious commitment, and religious involvement. Religious commitment was positively related to anger only when religious identity was salient. Religious involvement was negatively related to anger and hostility only when religious identity was salient. Religious identity salience appears to act as a moderator by either enhancing perceptions of threat or by activating internal religious beliefs and values.     

Identity,Recovery, and Religious Imperialism

Cultural disintegration and the resulting loss of self-esteem have acted as precursors for rampant substance abuse in indigenous American communities. Especially at risk are Native women, who have little recognition in the dominant culture, but whose traditional roles of respect have also dwindled with forced acculturation. Just when a wave of reconversion (going "back to the blanket") is taking hold among Native women substance users/abusers, the even more prevalent commercialization of Indian religion and pseudo-religion are denigrating these recaptured sources of dignity and pride. This "religious imperialism" doesn't just parody true Native faiths; it robs Native women in recovery of the self-esteem building tool which has proven most effective. It also continues the appropriation of indigenous culture which further serves to undermine coming generations of Native American women.     

White Racial Identity Development and Religious Orientation

This study investigated psychological dimensions of race and religion by examining the relationship between the White racial identity statuses proposed by J. E. Helms (1984, 1990d, 1995), Contact, Disintegration, Reintegration, Pseudo‐Independence, Immersion/Emersion, and Autonomy, and 4 forms of religious orientation, intrinsic, extrinsic, fundamentalism, and quest. Participants included 233 undergraduates from a public university in the southeastern United States. They completed the White Racial Identity Attitudes Scale (J. E. Helms & R. T. Carter, 1990), 3 measures of religious orientation, and a demographic questionnaire. A canonical correlation analysis found 3 significant canonical pairs suggesting that higher and more complex racial identity statuses may be positively related to more integrated and flexible forms of religious orientation. Implications for counseling are noted.     

Profiles of Identity Exploration and Commitment Across Domains

We examined the relationships between family structure, gender and age and profiles of identity exploration and commitment in the ideological (occupation, values, politics, religion, gender roles) and interpersonal identity (dating, friendships, and family) domains among 388 young adults. The general profile revealed low exploration in both domains, with ideological exploration being the lower, compared to high and comparable levels of commitment in the two domains. Older participants explored more than younger ones, and females gave more attention to the interpersonal domain than did males. Participants from original families explored more in the interpersonal domain than in the ideological domain, but their commitment was the same for the two domains. Participants from non-original families explored in equal amounts in the two domains, but were more committed in the interpersonal domain compared to participants from original families. Participants from non-original families explored more in the ideological domain than did participants from original families. Our findings indicate that individuals from non-original families exhibit positive outcomes and strengths that are often overlooked in the literature.     

Religious Identity and Borderless Territoriality in the Coptic e-Diaspora

In recent decades, Coptic Egyptian immigrants have steadily adopted new homelands throughout the world, most significantly in Europe, North America, and Australia. Their efforts perpetuate their religious and cultural identity and connect diaspora communities and experiences to the mother church as well as to the realities of marginalization and persecution of their co-religionists in Egypt. However, relatively little research has been carried out on the virtual or digital presences of diaspora Copts, all the more significant in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring. Focusing on religious identity, this article fills a lacuna by analyzing three case studies of electronic identity mediation and preservation in the Coptic diaspora: (1) the online ecclesiastical-pastoral and educational presence of Bishop Suriel of Melbourne, (2) the spiritual-social-cultural mission of the Los Angeles-based Coptic television station LogosTV, and (3) the global collaborative academic project of the digital Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia. These are part of an emerging electronic Coptic diaspora (e-diaspora)—a form of borderless territoriality—that functions to compensate for the loss of territorial and socio-religious-cultural-political control in Egypt and provide Copts with virtual territorial gains and borderless space for community and consciousness raising.     

Adolescent Identity Formation: Religious Exploration and Commitment

Two studies investigated links between adolescents' attempts to deal with religious issues, in particular, religious doubt and identity development. Identity status was measured by the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (Adams, Bennion, & Huh, 1989; Adams, Shea, & Fitch, 1979), which is based on crisis-exploration and commitment. Study 1 involved 132 university students, and Study 2 included 937 senior high school students. Identity achievement scores were linked to seeking out both belief-confirming consultation (BCC) and belief-threatening consultation (BTC) for religious doubts. Moratorium scores were modestly related to more religious doubting and lack of religious commitment, and also with avoidance of BCC. More foreclosed people were more religiously committed and less doubtful of religious teachings. Doubt consultation for the foreclosed tended to involve belief-confirming sources and avoidance of belief-threatening resources. More diffused individuals tended to experience more religious doubts, be religiously uncommitted, disagree with religious teachings, and avoid both BCC and BTC. Also, identity achievement was positively related to healthy personal adjustment, whereas diffusion was negatively related to healthy personal adjustment. Discussion focuses on the ways in which the concurrent and longitudinal patterns of identity-religion links in these studies support the conceptualization of identity formation and the role that religion plays in the identity process.     

Religious Orientation and Ethnic Identity as Predictors of Religious Coping Among Bereaved Individuals

Religious orientation and ethnic identity inform the religious coping process, but research on this topic is scarce. The authors collected data on these constructs from a sample (N = 319) of bereaved adults. A canonical correlation analysis showed that individuals who engage in traditional spiritual practices and strive to achieve ordinary and transcendental spiritual goals are more likely to engage in positive religious coping (Wilks's Λ = .36, R_c² = .62, p < .001). Also, a multiple regression analysis revealed that individuals with higher levels of ethnic identity development are more likely to engage in positive religious coping (β = .12, t < .05). Finally, a discriminant analysis indicated that ethnic identity and a conservative religious orientation discriminated between Whites and ethnic minority individuals, Wilks's Λ = .71, χ²(4, N = 204) = 70.10, p < .001, R_c² = .26. The authors encourage counselors to strengthen their multicultural and spiritual competencies to provide effective services to a culturally and religiously diverse clientele.     

Religious Identity and Cultural Diversity: Exploring the Relationships Between Religious Identity,Sexism, Homophobia,and Multicultural Competence

In this article, the authors present the results from a national study investigating the relationships between religious identity, sexism, homophobia, and multicultural competence. Participants were 111 randomly sampled counseling professionals and graduate students. The results indicated a relationship between religious identity and various aspects of valuing cultural diversity, including sexism, homophobia, and multicultural competence. Implications of the role of religion and religious identity in counseling are discussed, and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Role of Religious Attendance and Identity Conflict in Psychological Well-being

A sample of individuals who identified as gay or lesbian were administered measures of church attendance, their religious organization’s view of homosexuality, perceived conflict between religious faith identity and sexual orientation identity, social support, depression, and generalized anxiety. Among participants who rated their church as rejecting of homosexuality, greater frequency of attendance was related to a higher incidence of GAD symptoms, but not depression. No correlation was found for those attending accepting faith communities. Those who attend rejecting faith communities attended services less often, experienced greater identity conflict, and reported significantly less social support than those of the Accepted group. Regression analyses indicated that identity conflict and social support did not fully account for the relationship between attendance and GAD symptoms. Overall, findings from the current study support previous suggestions that participation in conservative or rejecting religious communities may adversely affect the emotional well-being of GL individuals.     

Religious Social Identity as an Explanatory Factor for Associations Between More Frequent Formal Religious Participation and Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

Guided by social identity theory, this study investigated having a closer identification as a member of one's religious group as an explanatory mechanism for linkages between more frequent formal religious participation and better subjective psychological well-being (more positive affect, less negative affect, and more life satisfaction). Multivariate regression models were estimated based on data from 3,032 respondents, ages 25 to 74, in the 1995 National Survey of Midlife in the U.S. Results provided support for the hypothesis that religious social identity would mediate the associations between more frequent religious service attendance and all three dimensions of subjective psychological well-being examined. These findings contribute to understandings of self, religion, and health while indicating the continued importance of drawing on well-developed social psychological theory in investigations of linkages between religion and mental health.     

The Multidimensionality of Motivation for Jewish Religious Behavior: Content, Structure, and Relationship to Religious Identity

The present study examined the content and structure of self–reported motivation for Jewish religious behavior. Initial items were generated from comprehensive and detailed responses to a semi–structured interview and an open–ended questionnaire. Principal component factor analysis with orthogonal rotation was carried out on the responses of a sample of 323 research participants to two parallel sets of the 111 items produced by the above process. The factor structures for each of these sets of items were highly similar to each other and consisted of the following five reliable factors: belief in a divine order, ethnic identity, social activity, family activity, and upbringing. These factors appear to reflect the way religious behavior can contribute to the satisfaction of a number of general human motives. Persons with different religious identities were found to attribute their performance of religious ritual to different motives, providing a partial explanation for the apparent anomaly of the performance of religious ritual by persons who identify themselves as secular.     

Religiosity,Gender, and Preferences for Religious Interventions in Counseling: A Preliminary Study

The authors sought to determine whether relationships existed between religiosity, gender, and preferences for a counselor's use of religious interventions in counseling. First, it was hypothesized that students with high religiosity would express stronger preferences for a counselor's use of religious interventions than would students with low religiosity. Second, it was hypothesized that women would express stronger preferences for religious interventions in counseling than would men. Results supported both hypotheses, and the findings may have important implications for counselors working with clients who indicate adherence to religious views or faith.     

Religious Social Identity as an Explanatory Factor for Associations between More Frequent Formal Religious Participation and Psychological Well-Being

Guided by social identity theory, this study investigated having a closer identification as a member of one's religious group as an explanatory mechanism for linkages between more frequent formal religious participation and better subjective psychological well-being (more positive affect, less negative affect, and more life satisfaction). Multivariate regression models were estimated based on data from 3,032 participants, ages 25 to 74, in the 1995 National Survey of Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS). Results provided support for the mediating effect of religious social identity on the associations between more frequent religious service attendance and all three dimensions of psychological well-being examined. Given the lack of previous empirical attention to social identity within the literature on religiosity and mental health, these findings contribute to our understanding of self, religion, and health, while also pointing to the importance of continuing to draw on well developed social psychological theory in investigations of linkages between religion and health.