ETHNORELIGIOUS IDENTITY AS A MANIFESTATION OF THE NEED: CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH

Abstract

The concept of ethnoreligious identity attracts attention of many researchers. However, there is no clear answer to the question of the impact of ethnic and religious affiliation on the formation of aspects of human identity in the course of life. Besides, it is quite challenging to translate theoretical models of ethnoreligious identity into a plane of empirical measurement, given its conceptual complexity.
The article is aimed at studying the ethnic and religious identity within the framework of the concept of need. It has been shown that an ethnic and religious identity creates a psychological basis for human behavior and can be seen as a substantive manifestation of the need that mediates certain behavior. This approach makes it possible to consider ethnic and religious affiliations as elements of a person’s cultural identity, which, in turn, is a product of the fulfillment of one’s personal need.
This study interpreted the ethnoreligious identity in terms of the need theory. Such approach attempts offering a thorough explanation of human identity formation. The need is a biosocial platform, which, on the one hand, seeks embodiment in a person, and on the other, is the carrier of the ancestral social experience. Thus, the social identity in the broad sense of the word, and ethnoreligious identity as its category, creates a psychological basis for certain human behavior and can be seen as a substantive manifestation of the need that mediates behavior. Hence, it is possible to assume that the comparatively “inherited” aspect of ethnic and religious identity in most people characterizes a manifestation of the need as actualization of ethnoreligious potentials in certain patterns of behavior.
The article presented an empirical validation of the need. It was anticipated that different ethnoreligious groups and groups with the same ethnic-, but different religious component would exhibit different properties of the need.
The cross-cultural study measured specific differences of ethnic and religious identities in the sample of Egyptian Muslims, Egyptian Christians, and Ukrainian Christians. The Egyptian sample (N = 216) consisted of two subgroups: 147 Sunni Muslims and 68 Coptic Christians, including 139 women and 76 men; the participants’ average age was 27. While, the Ukrainian sample was represented by one group of Ukrainian multiconfessional Christians (N = 109, including 63 girls and 46 boys; average age was 24.5).
The results of the empirical study confirmed the initial hypothesis. First, Student’s t-test showed differences in the affective component of religiosity in Egyptian Christians and Ukrainian Christians. Second, a positive correlation between the purpose in life (PIL) and an affective attitude towards one’s religion in Egyptians – regardless of their religious identity – was found. Thus, it can be assumed that the ethnic component of the identity of Egyptians correlates with the sense of purpose in life. It is argued that the PIL questionnaire measures additional aspects of the need, revealing more powerful links to aspects of the identity in Egyptian Muslims. This may be in favor of the claim that Islam shapes not only philosophical aspects of religion as such, but also those that relate to all aspects of daily life, and which are usually clearly stated in religious books or oral traditions of religious knowledge transfer. Besides, the multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated a greater predictive weight of ethnic identity for individual identity orientations (AIQ-IV). It is possible to conclude that the AIQ-IV instrument measures identity orientations that correlate more with the ethnic identity of subjects.
Finally, an attempt has been made to empirically test the concept of need in a cross-cultural context. The results of this cross-cultural empirical study have demonstrated the validity and relevance of the inventories selected for measuring aspects of ethno-religious identity as an expression of need. A more significant impact of ethnic identity on manifestations of the need has also been identified. The hypothesis of differences in the way the need exhibits itself in participants with different ethnic and religious identities was confirmed leading to the conclusion that the need unfolds differently in different cultural spaces. It was shown that in the dichotomy of religious and ethnic components, the latter has a more significant influence on the peculiarities of the need.
Yet, this study is merely an attempt to outline the empirical validation of the need. At the same time, it contributes to understanding the ethnoreligious identity and the concept of need.