Aggression in Response to Threatening Individuals’ Religious versus National Identity in a Live Instant Messaging Paradigm

ABSTRACT Some scholars claim that identifying with religious groups leads to a greater inclination toward violence than identifying with secular groups and we test this proposition in a unique experimental threat paradigm. We examine the possibility that threats toward individuals’ religious identities will result in greater aggression relative to threats toward individuals’ national identity. Additionally, we extend research on the direct association between religious fundamentalism and aggression by examining whether fundamentalism interacts with the experience of a threatened religious identity to exacerbate aggression. Among 120 self-identified religious Canadians, we examined aggression as a response to threats toward participants’ religious or national identity. Participants engaged in a live instant messaging conversation with a confederate, in which the confederate denigrated participants’ religious identity in the religious identity threat condition, denigrated participants’ Canadian national identity in the national identity threat condition, or did not denigrate either identity in the control condition. Following, participants’ self-reported aggression was measured. Participants in the national identity threat condition reported higher levels of aggression relative to those in the religious identity threat condition or the control condition. Additionally, the effect of religious fundamentalism on aggression was moderated by threat such that the positive association between religious fundamentalism and aggression was eliminated when national identity was threatened.