Research On The Influence Of Religious Conversion To Self-construcal

In the early study, the scholars defined religious conversion as" self-transformation",that is, through religious conversion one could gain a new self. With the increasingdevelopment of religious psychology, researchers continue to further explorate the conceptof religious conversion. Currently researchers defined religious conversion as: aconversion to more religious belief, behavior and devotion. After religious conversion, oneassimilated a new religionary and cultural value-system, individual self-system andvalue-system had changed. Markus proposed the self-constructual theory, with thecontinuous development and improvement, now is as good as mature. Self-construal wasconceptualized here as a constellation of thoughts, feelings, and actions concerning one’srelationship to others, and the self as distinct from others. The self-construal theoryprovided a new perspective for self-study. In summary, under the vision of self-construalstheory, research on the influence of self-construcal to religious conversion is innovationand important.This study used the Self-Construal Scale to measure religious converts and non-religious converts among university students. On this basis, further study used theNeuroticism Extraversion Openness Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) to measure howreligious conversion affected self-construal. The results construct the mediation model ofreligious conversion affect the relationship of the big five personality and the self-construal.Study’s conclusions as following:(1)Individuals showed gender, subject categories and age differences overself-construals. Males tended to be independent self-construal, females tended to beinterdependent self-construal. Students majored in science tended to be independent self-construal, students majored in be arts tended to interdependent self-construal. Oldersindividuals tended to be independent self-construal, younger individuals tended to beinterdependent self-construal.(2) College students’ religious conversion significantly related to gender and residencetype. Particularly women converted more than men, and individuals who lived in countryconverted more than those who lived in city.(3) Religious conversion had significant influence on self-construal. Religiousconverts tended to independent self-construal, non-religious converts tend tointerdependent self-construcal. After religious conversion, religious converts accepted anew value system and cultural values of religion, so the self-construal has changed, theindependent self-construcal reduce.(4) Religious conversion influenced self-construal by the Big Five personality.Religious conversion made religious converts the compliance of the Big Five personalitydecreases, establish a relatively independent self, interdependent self-construal reduced.In this study, compliance religious converts and non-religious converts amonguniversity students, found that religious conversion influence the Big Five personality andthen influence self-construal. In the other words, the Big Five personality worked as amediator. The study of religious conversion is stiff in the development, future researchesare needed to study deeply how religious conversion is, in order to better understand howreligious conversion influence the personality and self-construal.