Fundamentalism as dogmatic belief, moral rigorism, and strong groupness across cultures: Dimensionality, underlying components, and related interreligious prejudice.

Is fundamentalism universal across religious cultures? We investigated this issue by focusing on 3 questions: (a) the dimensionality of fundamentalism, as measured by the Religious Fundamentalism Scale (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2004); (b) the very nature of fundamentalism as denoting dogmatic belief, moral rigorism, or strong groupness; and (c) interreligious prejudice as predicted uniquely, additively, or interactively by religiousness and sociocognitive rigidity. We collected data from 14 countries of Catholic, Protestant, Christian Orthodox, Buddhist, Jewish, and Muslim tradition, regrouped in 7 cultural-religious zones (N = 3,218 young adults). We measured fundamentalism, the 4 dimensions of religiousness (believing, bonding, behaving, and belonging), authoritarianism, existential quest, and interreligious prejudice—negative and discriminatory attitudes toward various religious outgroups and atheists. Across religious cultures, we found that: (a) the scale is unidimensional; (b) fundamentalism is best conceptualized as a combination of dogmatic belief (believing and low existential quest) and moral rigorism (behaving and authoritarianism) and occasionally as strong groupness (belonging and authoritarianism); (c) religious dimensions, additively to and interactively with, authoritarianism and low existential quest predict interreligious prejudice (in monotheistic cultures); and (d) anti-Muslim attitudes were the highest, but fundamentalism and religiousness related most strongly to antiatheist sentiments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) © 2020 American Psychological Associatio

Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging: The Cognitive, Emotional, Moral, and Social Dimensions of Religiousness across Cultures

Based on theorization on the four basic dimensions of religiousness, Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging, and corresponding cognitive, emotional, moral, and social motives and functions of religion, we developed a measure and investigated cross-cultural consistency of the four dimensions as well interindividual and cross-cultural variability. Data were collected from 14 countries varying in religious heritage: Catholicism, Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism/Taoism (N = 3,218). Beyond their high interrelation and common personality correlates, that is, agreeableness and conscientiousness, the four dimensions were distinct across cultures and religions, less interrelated in Eastern Asia compared to the West, differentially preferred across cultural zones, and characterized by distinct features. Believing and bonding, to which spirituality was primarily related, were preferred in Western secular societies. Behaving and belonging, valued in religious societies, were importantly related to fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and low openness. Bonding and behaving were primordial in, respectively, Israel and Turkey. Furthermore, belonging (marked by extraversion) and bonding were uniquely associated with increased life satisfaction, whereas believing was uniquely related to existential quest and decreased life satisfaction. Thus, the multidimensionality of religiousness seems deeply rooted in distinct psychological dispositions evident at both the individual and the cultural levels. © The Author(s) 2020