Religious identity is a specific type of identity formation. Particularly, it is the sense of group membership to a religion and the importance of this group membership as it pertains to one's self-concept. Religious identity is not necessarily the same as religiousness or religiosity. Although these three terms share a commonality, religiousness and religiosity refer to both the value of religious group membership as well as participation in religious events (e.g. going to church). [1] [2] Religious identity, on the other hand, refers specifically to religious group membership regardless of religious activity or participation.
Similar to other forms of identity formation, such as ethnic and cultural identity, the religious context can generally provide a perspective from which to view the world, opportunities to socialize with a spectrum of individuals from different generations, and a set of basic principles to live out. [3] These foundations can come to shape an individual's identity.
Despite the implications that religion has on identity development, the identity formation literature has mainly focused on ethnicity and gender and has largely discounted the role of religion. Nevertheless, an increasing number of studies have begun to include religion as a factor of interest. [1] [3] [4] However, many of these studies use religious identity, religiosity, and religiousness interchangeably or solely focus on religious identity and solely religious participation as separate constructs.
Of these types of research studies, researchers have examined the various factors that affect the strength of one's religious identity over time. [5] [6] [7] Factors that have been found to affect levels of religious identity include gender, ethnicity, and generational status. [3] [8] [9] [10] [11]
'Identity' is one of the most used terms in the social sciences and has different senses in different research paradigms. In addition to psychological studies, sociologists and anthropologists also apply the term 'religious identity' and examine its related processes in given social contexts. For example, one important study conducted in the United States after the events of September 11, 2001, explored the meaning-making among American Muslims [12] and how changes in identity ascription (what people think about another group of people) affected how Muslims sought to represent themselves. Other studies have applied concepts appropriated from race and gender identity theory such as disidentification [13] which undermines essentialist accounts of religious identity – that an individual has a 'fixed' religious identity, independent of pre-existing systems of representation and individuals' positioning within them.
Individuals who share the same religious identity are called coreligionists.
During the early 1800s in the field of psychology, research on the topic of religion was considered important and ubiquitous. For example, researchers like G. Stanley Hall and William James conducted studies on such topics as religious conversion. [14] [15] In contrast, the public perspective on religion began to shift two decades later. [15] Instead of religion being seen as an integral part of an individual's life and development and thus a necessary topic to research, scientists and scholars alike viewed religion as a hindrance to the progression of science and as a topic no longer applicable to the current times. [15] [16] [17]
Contrary to social scientists' prediction of the general decline of religion over time and increase of secularization leading to a complete abandonment of religious studies, religion did not diminish and was instead acknowledged by researchers as a topic worthwhile to research. Scientists and scholars, like British sociologist John Thompson, realized that despite the neglect of religion in studies, the presence and impact of religion on individuals' lives were undeniable and did not disappear with time. [18] Hence, a body of research on religion began to take root. Particularly, a handful of researchers were interested in examining religious identity during adolescence.
Given that religious traditions can be intricately interlaced with various aspects of culture, the religious identity literature has consistently yielded ethnic, gender, and generational differences. [3] [10] [19]
According to Social Identity Theory, when individuals of ethnic minority backgrounds feel as if their identity is threatened, they may emphasize their other social identities as a means to maintain a positive self-concept. [20] This idea is supported by the various studies that have shown higher levels of religious identity among ethnic minorities, particularly those from Latino and African American backgrounds, compared to European Americans. [11] [19]
Gender may also impact one's religious identity. Generally, females are more likely than males to attend religious services and express that religion is an important aspect of their lives. [10] Studies have captured this gender difference through observations of females reporting greater religious attitudes. [3] [10] This was also shown in a four-year longitudinal study on religious involvement for adolescents living in rural settings. Females tended to be more involved in church-related activities than males and were more likely to view themselves as religious individuals.
There are three categories of generational status: First, Second, and Third. An individual who is considered to be first generation is one who was born outside of the country and immigrated. Second generation refers to an individual who was born in the country but whose parent(s) were foreign-born and immigrated. Lastly, third generation refers to an individual and the individual's parents were born in the country.
First and second generation individuals may tend to have particularly higher religious identity levels in comparison to third generation immigrants. [8] [9] In efforts to adjust to the stressful changes associated with the immigration process, finding a community of emotional, social, and financial support, an environment typically provided by a place of worship, may be highly sought after by immigrants. [9] Studies have indeed revealed that adolescents from immigrant families (both first and second generation immigrants) reported higher levels of religious identity compared to adolescents whose parents are not immigrants (third generation). [8] [9]
Studies suggest that institutional factors impact on religious identity. For example in a study of Christians, Jews and Muslims in English secondary schools [21] adolescents reported negative representations of their religious traditions in the curriculum and common stereotypes held by their peers. These negative ascriptions were perceived by participants to influence their strategies of representing themselves, including hiding their religious affiliations or attempting to pre-empt criticism or bullying by representing the traditions they identified with in an apologetic conciliatory manner.
By and large, numerous studies have observed ethnic, gender, and generational differences in religious identity. However, there have not been as many longitudinal studies on the influence of ethnicity, gender, and generational status on individuals' development of religious identity over time. Nevertheless, of the handful of such studies, researchers have focused mainly on adolescence [3] [11] [15] [22] and started to branch out to emerging adulthood. [4] [23] [24] [25]
Researchers have been particularly interested in studying identity during adolescence because it is a developmental period crucial to identity development. During this period, adolescents have opportunities to explore their ethnic, cultural, and religious traditions. [3] However, the freedom and flexibility of their exploration is typically within the constraints of their parents or caregiver.
It was believed that religious identity and participation would both follow the same trajectory and decrease across time; hence, the studies that examined religiousness, which combines the two constructs. [3] [10] Although religious affiliation, identity, and participation are closely related, longitudinal research on adolescents suggests that these constructs have different trajectories from one another. For example, researchers have found that religious affiliation and identity for adolescents remained fairly stable across the high school years, which contradicts the expected change in religious affiliation from affiliated to unaffiliated and decrease in religious identity. [19]
However, the stability of adolescent religious identity parallels that of other social identities such as ethnic identity. [26] Researchers have reasoned that due to adolescents' relatively stable social environment, there is not a strong need to further explore and renegotiate their religious identity. [19] Moreover, religious identity is mainly driven by parents during adolescence. [27] Given that adolescents tend to still live with their parents during high school, there may not be a need to engage in deeper exploration of their religion, which may help explain the observed stable religious identity.
Whereas religious affiliation and identity remain stable, religious participation tends to decrease. [19] Adolescents may exercise their increased autonomy and choose not to attend religious events. Particularly, adolescents may find other activities (e.g. studying, clubs, and sports) vying for their time and resources and choose to prioritize those activities over religious events. The significant decline in religious participation at the end of high school may be a precursor to further decline during emerging adulthood.
Adolescence has been traditionally associated with a time of identity exploration. However, that exploration process is not complete by the end of adolescence. Rather, emerging adulthood, the years between late teens and late twenties, extends the identity formation process from adolescence. [5] [6] [7]
This transitional period is marked by constant changes in romantic love, work, and worldviews [5] and is generally a time of "semiautonomy." [28] [29] With this increased sense of autonomy, emerging adults may choose to further exert their independence by moving away from home and/or by attending college. Through whichever ways that emerging adults choose to exercise their autonomy, they are likely to find themselves in new, diverse environments teeming with a spectrum of vast worldviews.
Despite the necessity for studies on religious identity, there has been limited work on the role of religion in identity formation in emerging adults. Compared to the research in adolescence, there is much less work on the development of religious identity and religious participation across the emerging adulthood years. The combination of immense and frequent changes, increased autonomy, and diverse environments during this period has major ramifications for the development of emerging adults' religious affiliation, religious identity, and religious participation. In the period of emerging adulthood individuals gain a more complex understanding of religious ideas which can lead to periods of questioning, doubt, and conversion. These periods of change in emerging adulthood can lead to longer-term religious ideologies [30]
Religion was believed to have little impact on emerging adults' identity, particularly for those who attend college [31] [32] [33] [34] However, recent research suggests otherwise. [4] [23] [24] [25] According to a study, while 14 percent of college students reported a decrease in religious beliefs throughout college, 48 percent reported stable religious beliefs, and 38 percent reported an increase. [4]
Moreover, another study found that contrary to the expectations of decreased religious identity and religious participation during emerging adulthood, religious identity did not decrease, but religious participation did decline as predicted. [25] Researchers explained that emerging adults are more likely to decrease their involvement in religious activities than they are to completely disaffiliate from their religion or express less importance of religion in their lives.
Additionally, in a study that examined the ways in which religion influenced emerging adults, researchers found that emerging adults' standards of adulthood were dependent upon the religious affiliation of the institution they attended. [23] For example, compared to emerging adults who attended Catholic or public universities, emerging adults who attended Mormon universities rated interdependence, norm compliance, biological transitions, and family capacities as extremely important criteria for adulthood.
In summary, although not all studies on this topic are in agreement, religious identity generally tends to remain stable during emerging adulthood whereas religious participation decreases over time. [19] [25]
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood. Adolescence is usually associated with the teenage years, but its physical, psychological or cultural expressions may begin earlier or end later. Puberty typically begins during preadolescence, particularly in females. Physical growth and cognitive development can extend past the teens. Age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have not agreed upon a precise definition. Some definitions start as early as 10 and end as late as 26. The World Health Organization definition officially designates an adolescent as someone between the ages of 10 and 19.
An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. The biological definition of the word means an animal reaching sexual maturity and thus capable of reproduction. In the human context, the term adult has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a non-adult or "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. They may also be regarded as a "major". The typical age of attaining legal adulthood is 18, although definition may vary by legal rights, country, and psychological development.
Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. Specifically, it comprises the processes and symbolic systems that are shared by the youth and are distinct from those of adults in the community.
In sociology, a peer group is both a social group and a primary group of people who have similar interests (homophily), age, background, or social status. The members of this group are likely to influence the person's beliefs and behaviour.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines religiosity as: "Religiousness; religious feeling or belief. [...] Affected or excessive religiousness". Different scholars have seen this concept as broadly about religious orientations and degrees of involvement or commitment. Religiosity is measured at the levels of individuals or groups and there is a lack of agreement on what criteria would constitute religiosity among scholars. Sociologists of religion have observed that an individual's experience, beliefs, sense of belonging, and behavior often are not congruent with their actual religious behavior, since there is much diversity in how one can be religious or not. Multiple problems exist in measuring religiosity. For instance, measures of variables such as church attendance produce different results when different methods are used - such as traditional surveys vs time-use surveys.
Adolescent cliques are cliques that develop amongst adolescents. In the social sciences, the word "clique" is used to describe a group of 3 to 12 "who interact with each other more regularly and intensely than others in the same setting". Cliques are distinguished from "crowds" in that their members socially interact with one another more than the typical crowd. Crowds, on the other hand, are defined by reputation. Although the word 'clique' or 'cliquey' is often used in day-to-day conversation to describe relational aggression or snarky, gossipy behaviors of groups of socially dominant teenage girls, that is not always accurate. Interacting with cliques is part of normative social development regardless of gender, ethnicity, or popularity. Although cliques are most commonly studied during adolescence and in educational settings, they can exist in all age groups and settings.
Egocentrism is the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to accurately assume or understand any perspective other than one's own. Egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Although egocentric behaviors are less prominent in adulthood, the existence of some forms of egocentrism in adulthood indicates that overcoming egocentrism may be a lifelong development that never achieves completion. Adults appear to be less egocentric than children because they are faster to correct from an initially egocentric perspective than children, not because they are less likely to initially adopt an egocentric perspective.
Relational aggression, alternative aggression, or relational bullying is a type of aggression in which harm is caused by damaging someone's relationships or social status.
Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures that show a systematic hostility to the dominant culture are sometimes described as countercultures.
Personality development encompasses the dynamic construction and deconstruction of integrative characteristics that distinguish an individual in terms of interpersonal behavioral traits. Personality development is ever-changing and subject to contextual factors and life-altering experiences. Personality development is also dimensional in description and subjective in nature. That is, personality development can be seen as a continuum varying in degrees of intensity and change. It is subjective in nature because its conceptualization is rooted in social norms of expected behavior, self-expression, and personal growth. The dominant viewpoint in personality psychology indicates that personality emerges early and continues to develop across one's lifespan. Adult personality traits are believed to have a basis in infant temperament, meaning that individual differences in disposition and behavior appear early in life, potentially before language of conscious self-representation develop. The Five Factor Model of personality maps onto the dimensions of childhood temperament. This suggests that individual differences in levels of the corresponding personality traits are present from young ages.
Gender dysphoria in children (GD), also known as gender incongruence of childhood, is a formal diagnosis for children who experience significant discontent due to a mismatch between their assigned sex and gender identity. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder in children (GIDC) was used by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) until it was renamed gender dysphoria in children in 2013 with the release of the DSM-5. The diagnosis was renamed to remove the stigma associated with the term disorder.
James E. Marcia is a clinical and developmental psychologist. He taught at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada and the State University of New York at Buffalo in Upstate New York.
Emerging adulthood, early adulthood, or post-adolescence refers to a phase of the life span between late adolescence and early adulthood, as initially proposed by Jeffrey Arnett in a 2000 article from the American Psychologist. It primarily describes people living in developed countries, but it is also experienced by young adults in wealthy urban families in the Global South. The term describes young adults who do not have children, do not live in their own homes, and/or do not have sufficient income to become fully independent. Arnett suggests emerging adulthood is the distinct period between 20 and 29 years of age where young adults become more independent and explore various life possibilities.
Identity formation, also called identity development or identity construction, is a complex process in which humans develop a clear and unique view of themselves and of their identity.
According to Alberts, Elkind, and Ginsberg the personal fable "is the corollary to the imaginary audience. Thinking of themselves as the center of attention, the adolescent comes to believe that it is because they are special and unique.” It is found during the formal operational stage in Piagetian theory, along with the imaginary audience. Feelings of invulnerability are also common. The term "personal fable" was first coined by the psychologist David Elkind in his 1967 work Egocentrism in Adolescence.
"Religious development" refers to the formation of religious beliefs and values in individuals. Processes of religious development may be studied within the scope of social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, ethnography, and sociology, among others.
Moral development focuses on the emergence, change, and understanding of morality from infancy through adulthood. The theory states that morality develops across a lifespan in a variety of ways and is influenced by an individual's experiences and behavior when faced with moral issues through different periods of physical and cognitive development. Morality concerns an individual's reforming sense of what is right and wrong; it is for this reason that young children have different moral judgment and character than that of a grown adult. Morality in itself is often a synonym for "rightness" or "goodness." It also refers to a specific code of conduct that is derived from one's culture, religion, or personal philosophy that guides one's actions, behaviors, and thoughts.
Ethnic identity development includes the identity formation in an individual's self-categorization in, and psychological attachment to, (an) ethnic group(s). Ethnic identity is characterized as part of one's overarching self-concept and identification. It is distinct from the development of ethnic group identities.
In psychology and related fields, future orientation is broadly defined as the extent to which an individual thinks about the future, anticipates future consequences, and plans ahead before acting. Across development, future orientation is particularly important during periods of major changes, for example during the transition from adolescence to adulthood, when youth must make choices about social groups, academic paths, as well as risky behaviors like drug and alcohol use, and sexual activity. Several models have been developed to describe the various factors that combine to impact future orientation.
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