Religious and Ethnic Discrimination: Differential Implications for Social Support Engagement, Civic Involvement, and Political Consciousness

Renate Ysseldyk,Kimberly Matheson,Hymie Anisman,Irene Bloemraad,Miki Talebi

doi:10.5964/jspp.v2i1.232

Abstract

Social identity threats, depending on the content of the identity targeted, may evoke varying socio-political responses. In this regard, religious discrimination may be especially threatening, challenging both the social group and its belief system, thereby promoting more active collective responses. This research examined how religious and ethnic identification differentially evoked engagement with support resources (ingroup and spiritual), civic involvement (including individual and collective action-taking), and political participation (voting or political consciousness) following group-based threats. Study 1 drew from the CanadianEthnic Diversity Survey(N= 1806). Participants who reported religious discrimination demonstrated greater religious identification, ingroup social engagement, and civic involvement—comparable associations were absent for ethnic discrimination. Study 2 (N= 287) experimentally primed participants to make salient a specific incident of religious or ethnic discrimination. Although ethnic discrimination elicited greater ingroup support-seeking and political consciousness, religious discrimination was perceived as especially harmful and evoked more individual and collective action-taking. Further to this, religious high-identifiers’ responses were mediated by engagement with ingroup or spiritual support in both studies, whereas no mediated relations were evident for ethnic identification. Findings are discussed in terms of distinct socio-political responses to threats targeting identities that are grounded in religious belief systems.

Highlights

Social identity threats, depending on the content of the identity targeted, may evoke varying socio-political responses
Individuals who experienced ethnic discrimination appeared to engage in spiritual support-seeking to a greater extent than those who reported no discrimination, corroborating previous findings that suggest individualized religion may be an important coping mechanism even in the context of threats targeting other group memberships
The same mediating roles of engagement were not observed with ethnic identification and threat. These findings suggest that religious identification may have a unique role in fostering civic involvement, especially among those who have experienced religious discrimination, in part because religious identity itself serves as a platform for greater engagement with ingroup support networks (Putnam & Campbell, 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Social identity threats, depending on the content of the identity targeted, may evoke varying socio-political responses. Even when ethnic and religious identities are closely aligned (Jacobson, 1997; Phalet, Baysu, & Verkuyten, 2010; Putnam & Campbell, 2010), individuals might engage in different reactions following threats to specific identities In this regard, whereas both ethnic and religious discrimination entail an assault on a salient group membership, religious discrimination could be perceived as especially threatening, given the sacred ideological belief system inherent to the group affiliation (van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears, 2012; Ysseldyk, Matheson, & Anisman, 2010). Spiritual support-seeking is often a valued coping resource on which to rely in times of threat, especially among religious individuals (Pargament, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998; Rutjens, van der Pligt, & van Harreveld, 2012) To this end, in two studies, we assessed the mediating role of engagement with both ingroup and spiritual support resources in accounting for the relations between social identification (religious or ethnic) and socio-political responses. Confrontational action-taking to overcome the disadvantaged status of one’s group is relatively less common than more moderate actions (Cameron & Nickerson, 2009; Matheson & Anisman, 2009), and may depend in part on group status and/or permeability of the intergroup boundaries (Wright, Taylor, & Moghaddam, 1990)

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Conclusion