What Personal Value Types are Associated with Beliefs on the Social Value of Religion?

Abstract

Religion plays a very important role in some societies but not in others. Within each society, individuals also differ in the degree to which they believe that religion is an important force in their lives and in their society. This belief about the social value of religion is referred to as the social axiom of religiosity. This study inquires into what personal values as defined in Schwartz’s circumplex model of value types are associated with the social axiom of religiosity. The question is investigated in the Philippines—a country where religion in widely regarded as important. Drawing from indigenous research on Filipino values, the social axiom of religiosity was hypothesized to be associated with four value types. Participants completed the Portrait Values Questionnaire and Social Axioms Survey, and the results provide partial support for the hypotheses. The social axiom of religiosity was positively associated with conformity and negatively associated with power. The results are discussed in terms of how the social axiom of religiosity may not be congruent with personal values related to self-enhancement and openness to change, and how the value-expressive functions of the social axiom of religiosity may work in countries that strongly emphasize religion.