Religious identification and attitude toward economic involvement among christians and muslims in Russia

Measures

Independent variables: Religious identification

Respondents were asked to rate the strength of their religious identification by answering the question “How would you rate your level of religiosity?” on a 7- point scale: this item was retrieved from the European Social Survey (ESS, 2010). We constructed a question to measure the degree of positivity of religious identification. Respondents were asked to assess the type of feelings they associated their religion with on a 7-point scale, with 1 as “very negative” and 7 as “very positive”.

Dependent variables: Models of economic behavior

To identify the models of economic behavior, specifically “economic involvement”, we used a methodology of economic behavior scenarios which allows the identification of economic attitudes. This methodology is based on the scenario approach that was developed in the Scientific-Educational Laboratory of SocioPsychological Research at HSE in 2010. It was validated on a sample of 424 respondents in two cities in Russia (Tatarko et al., 2011). The respondents were given a description of a scenario and were then asked to evaluate the situation using two scales: one assesses their willingness to act in the same way as in the vignette (the behavioral component of the attitude) and the other measures the emotional preference for this behavior (the affective component of the attitude). Each indicator of economic behavior has a bipolar dimension.

(a) the behavior of the person who they liked the most and to what extent (the “Emotional preference” scale) (--3 -- I like Alexander's behavior more; 0 -- I don't know; 3 -- I like Vasily's behavior more);

(b) how likely the respondent was willing to act similarly to one of the characters (the “Willingness” scale) (--3 -- I would do as Alexander did; 0 -- I don't know; 3 -- I would do as Vasily did).

The situations were designed so that the behavior of one character reflects one pole of the dimension of economic behavior, and the behavior of the second reflects the opposite pole of this dimension, i.e. Alexander and Vasily's behaviors are opposite.

The personal data set included questions on the respondent's age, sex, education, place of study/work, employment status and nationality. We used education and employment status as control variables.

Procedure. A questionnaire in Russian was individually completed by respondents in the interviewer's presence. The average time for filling in the questionnaire was approximately 25 minutes.

Data analysis. We compared means using Student's t-test. We also performed CFA in order to test the factorial structure of the model. To identify relationships between the variables, we used multi-group structural equation modelling (MGSEM) using the maximum likelihood estimation method. The data was analysed using SPSS 22 and AMOS (Version 22).

Table 2 presents the means and standard deviations. The mean score for the Sunni Muslims on the positivity of religious identification measure is close to the scale's upper limit and the standard deviation is relatively low, suggesting a ceiling effect. In total, 53.6% of the participants had the maximum score of 7 on this measure and 93.8% had scores of 5 or above. On all other measures, the mean score is around the scale midpoint and the range is wider. Not surprisingly, due to the lack of variability in the range of responses for this measure, positivity of religious identification was not associated with economic involvement.

We found significant differences between the two religious groups in attitudes toward economic independence. Economic independence is significantly higher in the group of Muslims than in the group of Christians. Cohen's d coefficients are relatively low. This means that the differences might depend on the sample sizes.

Table 2

The next section consists of two parts: in the first part the results of CFA run with variables measuring models of economic behavior are presented; in the second section we focus on the results of SEM.

We assumed that economic involvement forms a single factor derived from the three scenarios of economic independence, long-term perspectives in economic behavior, and economic activity. Each of them is the result of a combination of emotional preference and willingness scales. Therefore we tested the model using CFA on the combined sample (N=820). The model is presented in Figure 2.

Characteristics of the model are the following: CMIN/DF = 3.22; CFI = .99, RMSEA =.05, PCLOSE = .40. The model characteristics fit our data well enough to confirm the existence of one factor of economic involvement. Then we tested the resulting scales for scalar invariance in a multi-group simultaneous CFA with two religious samples. The characteristics of the model are: CMIN/DF = 1.65; CFI = .99, RMSEA = .03, PCLOSE = .91. Full scalar invariance was CFI = .001. Table 3 shows the standardized regression weights of the variables included in the economic involvement factor for the combined sample and both religious samples.

The models of economic behavior that form the factor of economic involvement have significant regression coefficients that confirm the overall and interfaith validity of the creation of the unified economic involvement factor.

The results of CFA demonstrated that the concept of economic involvement reflects the willingness to be economically independent, active, with the desire and willingness to build long-term prospects for economic behavior.

Prior to conducting the MGSEM on the groups of Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims, we compared means of religious identification in these two groups. f-test showed that strength and positivity of religious identification were significantly higher (p< 0.001) among the Muslims (5.11 and 6.19, respectively) than among the Christians (3.79 and 5.05).

Figure 2

Standardized Factor Loadings for the Models of Economic Behavior (Economic Involvement Factor)

Table 3

Figure 3

To test H1 (the relationship between strength and positivity of religious identification and models of economic behavior that reflect economic involvement attitudes) we used SEM. Figure 3 presents the model of the relationship between strength and positivity of religious identification and economic involvement in the representatives of Christianity and Islam. The results are presented in Figure 3.

Table 4

The characteristics of the unified sample models are: CMIN/DF = 1.83; CFI = .99; RMSEA =.05; PCLOSE = .94; for multi-group (Christian Orthodox + Sunni Muslims): CMIN/DF = 1.30; CFI = .99; RMSEA = .02; PCLOSE = 1.000. The regression weights in the whole sample, as well as in the two samples split by religious affiliation, are presented in Table 4.

The results indicated that strength of religious identification is negatively associated with economic involvement attitudes. We found the same results in the MGSEM on the Orthodox and Sunni samples.

Positivity of religious identification was positively associated with economic involvement models. However, in the MGSEM, this result was found only in the group of Christians.

In order to avoid multicollinearity between the strength and positivity of religious identification, which were found to be significantly correlated, we calculated variance inflation factor coefficient (VIF). The results showed that VIF is lower than 10. The tolerance indicator was also within acceptable limits (> 0.3), which excludes the presence of the direct effect between strength and positivity of religious identification. Therefore we concluded that there was no multicollinearity between these two variables.

When controlling for education (B = --.06, p> .05) and employment status (B = --.04, p> .05), the relationship of the strength and positivity of religious identification with economic involvement remain significant.

This paper studies the relationship between the characteristics of religious identification and models of economic behavior in groups of Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims. The results are consistent with previous research and support the idea that religion is associated with attitudes toward economic behavior (Dana, 2009; Parboteeah et al., 2009; Hayward & Kemmelmeier, 2011).

We found statistically significant interfaith differences in religious identification: strength of religious identification is significantly higher in the Muslim group. Muslims are characterized by a close relationship between ethnic and religious identification, since maintaining religious identification is a means to preserve their culture and the boundaries of their own ethnic group. Positivity of religious identification was also significantly higher in the Muslim group indicating consistent and more pronounced religiosity.

The presence of positive identification among respondents of both faiths suggests that the identification is voluntary, with high value for the person in general; while the awareness of forced identification leads to unfavorable evaluations (Amiot & Sansfagon, 2011), in our results we recorded only positive scores.

Our study supported the hypothesis that strength of religious identification is negatively associated with economic involvement. S. Schwartz postulated that religious people showed lower levels of achievement and stimulation (Schwart & Huismans, 1995). However, it is important to consider that those values form economically active behavior. For deeply religious Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims, the desire to take action in the economic sphere to increase material wellbeing, the willingness to build long-term prospects in economic behavior, and an interest in economics are nonessential. This confirms our assumption that lack of materialism in religious teachings is shared by members of the group and determines behaviors via social interaction. This hypothesis was supported both in the combined sample of Orthodox and Muslim people (SEM), and in two independent samples by religious affiliation (MGSEM). The hypothesis that positivity of religious identification is positively related to attitudes of economic involvement was also supported. It was revealed that positivity of religious identification promotes economic involvement attitudes. This is explained by the fact that the affective component of religious identification, i.e. actively participating achieves positive self-esteem (Tajfel, 1978), and promotes psychological well-being (Ashmore et al., 2004). Psychological well-being is closely linked to the active orientation of a person (such as autonomy and self-actualization) (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Thus, via psychological well-being, a positive religious identification promotes activity attitudes, in particular in economic behavior. However, this result was significant only in the group of Orthodox Christians, while positivity of religious identification did not have any effect on economic involvement among the Sunni Muslims. MGSEM showed that this relationship is also positive for them, though not statistically significant. The positive relationship between positivity of religious identification and economic involvement in the group of Christians can be explained by the fact that this group largely considers individual values, such as self-direction of thought and action, and openness to change, in a greater measure when compared to Muslims (Efremova & Lepshokova, 2013). Therefore, members of first group have more freedom and opportunities for individual choice, including economic involvement as well. People of different religions have different religious norms that promote specific orientations (Parboteeah et al., 2009). For example, in Islam, participation and the quest for economic activity is considered a religious duty (Yosef, 2000), therefore it is part of their bonds with the community. Thus, rates of economic

proactivity are higher in the group of Muslims than in the group of Christians. The lack of association between positivity of religious identification and economic involvement is not entirely surprising given the lack of variance in the responses to the positivity of religious identification measure. Indeed, the majority of responses were at (or very close to) the scale upper limit, suggesting a ceiling effect. This is consistent with M. Verkuyten's (2007) argument that Muslim identi cation is more like a nominal variable than a continuous variable, as one is either a believer or not (Triandis, 1992). Religious norms and rules affected by culture serve as behavioral guidelines. More importantly Islamic economic ethics is reflected in the sacred texts and in the system of doctrinal statements on economic relations. In Islam, laws defining and regulating market relations were formulated quite early (Susokolov, 2006).

When studying attitudes toward economic involvement in Muslims, it is important to look closely at the behavioral components of identity. It might help to identify more specifically how Islamic religious norms impact attitudes to economic involvement.

In our study we found that the strength and positivity of religious identification are associated differently with attitudes toward economic involvement.

The link between religion and economic behavior has increasingly attracted scientific attention (Basedau et al., 2018). In our study we investigated relationship between strength and positivity of religious identification and attitudes towards economic behavior in a group of Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims in Russia. We found that strength and positivity of religious identification are related to economic involvement in a different way. In particular, strength of religious identification was not conducive to attitudes reflecting economic involvement. Positive religious identification was found to have a positive effect on economic involvement attitudes. Comparative analysis demonstrated that the relationship between positivity of religious identification and economic involvement has interfaith specifics: positivity of religious identification was positively associated with economic involvement only in the group of Orthodox Christians, while in the group of Sunni Muslims, this association was not significant due to the ceiling effect.

The current research offers important insights but some limitations should be noted. First, in the current study the sample was collected only in Russia. Orthodox and Muslims were represented by members of different ethnic groups. The same relationships should be tested in other ethnic/national groups. Second, there was a lack of consideration of moderating factors (social and political) which also impact economic attitudes and views. Third, we took a closer look at cognitive and affective components of attitudes through self-reports, but did not focus on the behavior itself.

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40. Maria V. Efremova -- senior research fellow, International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research, Expert Institute; associate professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Ph.D.

41. Zarina Kh. Lepshokova -- senior research fellow, International Scientific-Educational Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research, Expert Institute; associate professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, School of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Ph.D.

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