My Religion and My People: Levels of Ingroup Identification and Christian Religious Orientations

People adopt a variety of approaches to practice their religion, but to date there has been no examination as to how identification with one’s community, with Americans, and with all humanity may relate to different religious orientations. Two studies tested the hypotheses that 1) intrinsic religious orientation would be associated with all three levels of ingroup identification, 2) extrinsic religious orientation would be associated with community-level identification only, 3) quest religious orientation would be associated with humanity-level identification only, and 4) orthodox religious orientation would be associated with community- and country-level identification only. Study 2 controlled for several individual difference variables. In both studies, participants (n = 285 for Study 1, n = 507 for Study 2) completed online surveys. The results across both studies showed that identifying with country was associated with orthodox Christianity, and identifying with all humanity was associated with intrinsic Christianity. Implications for research on religion and outgroup prejudice are discussed