Coping with threats to religious identity: Implications for psychological outcomes, social action, and political consciousness

A strong sense of membership in a valued social group, termed social identity, has been associated with positive psychological outcomes. Benefits appear to extend even to situations wherein the stressor involves discrimination on the basis of that group membership. However, the role of religion as both an identity and a system of beliefs for coping with stressful experiences might lend this particular social identity a protective effect exceeding that of membership in other groups, yet may also elicit stronger responses when it is challenged directly. The present investigation examined the role of religious identification in guiding appraisals of threatening events, coping responses, and subsequent psychosocial outcomes. Study 1 ( N = 142) revealed that highly-identified individuals reported reduced maladaptive appraisal-coping processes in an effort to deal with previous trauma and, in turn, more positive psychological outcomes. Yet, in response to a laboratory stressor designed to simulate religious discrimination (Study 2 N = 143), high-identifiers reported counter-productive coping strategies, poorer psychological outcomes, and were more likely to take action. Moreover, such responses exceeded those elicited by a non-religious identity threat. Study 3 (N = 420) involved the manipulation of religious versus ethnic identity salience and indicated stronger appraisal-coping, psychosocial, and political responses following recollection of a previous experience of religious compared with ethnic discrimination. Appraisal-coping processes mediated relations in all studies, but were most evident following religious threat. It is suggested that although religious identification generally facilitates adaptive responses to stressors, its protective effects appear to be undermined when religious identity is targeted, likely reflecting the threat as an assault on the belief system itself.