Religions of descent fulfill collective identity needs as validly as religions of ascent

Evidence

Research by Allport, Ross, and others (Allport & Ross, 1967; Baker & Gorshuch, 1982; Batson & Ventis, 1982; McFarland, 1989) has examined the distinction between extrinsic religious motivation, a drive to satisfy social or status needs, versus intrinsic religious motivation, faith for its own sake regardless of other benefits that may be derived. A commonly held belief about the distinction is the assumption that extrinsic religious motivation is nonnormative and of lesser value, whereas intrinsic religious motivation is normative and of higher value (Cohen, Hall, Koenig, & Meador, 2005). Researchers after Allport and Ross (1967) continue to argue that individuals who are motivated in part to belong to a religion to gain social support, identity, or status are not as advanced as members internally motivated to participate. More recently, however, Cohen et al. have argued that this distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic religious motivation imposes an American, Protestant, and individualistic set of norms on what is “good” versus “bad” religious motivation. Flere and Lavrič (2008) in a survey of American Protestants, Slovenian Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, and Bosnian Muslims found support that the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic religious motivation appears to be more strongly linked to American Protestants’ cultural beliefs than to those of any other religious group. The American Protestant tradition is characterized by individuals, either through conversion or free choice, entering their religious faith and is considered religion of ascent (Cohen et al., 2005; Morris, 1996, 1997). On the other hand, religious traditions such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Hinduism are considered religions of descent, or religions into which members are born (Cohen et al., 2005; Morris, 1996, 1997). Cohen et al. argue that religions of descent tend to be orientated toward fulfilling both the spiritual and social identity needs of its members but are not any less valuable than religious faiths characterized by higher levels of intrinsic religious motivation. To minimize the power of religion in fulfilling important needs at both the level of the collective self and personal self, some of the primary benefits individuals gain from being member of a large religious collective have been ignored. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 893

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the extrinsic/intrinsic distinction criticism in other social psychology; connects to religious social capital work and the gap between ‘lived religion’ and Protestant-modeled measures. — connects to: Religious truth is measured by collective need rather than solitary validity — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 301
• DEEPTHINKING: The whole framework — that a field’s evaluative categories smuggle in one culture’s theological assumptions (ascent vs descent) while presenting themselves as universal — is a dense, paradigm-shifting point applicable far beyond religion.
• DEFINE: Defines the extrinsic/intrinsic motivation distinction and the ascent/descent contrast, then undermines the default valuation of the former.