Relationship Between Passion Pathways and Religious Activism: Why the Threat to Religious Identity Predicts Peaceful Activism or Extremism?

Abstract

Identities of religious believers can motivate believers’ passions, emotions, and action tendencies. Religious identity-based passion can, therefore, lead people to identify with certain kinds of movements, both peaceful and extremist. Around the globe, identities of religious minorities provide a compelling context for studying peaceful and extremist activism driven by passion. Building on previous literature on social identity theory, passion, and religious identity, it was hypothesized that religious identity predicts passion of both types: Harmonious Passion (HP) and Obsessive Passion (OP). It was proposed that people who were harmoniously passionate about their religious identity would promote peaceful activism whereas people who were obsessively passionate would promote hatred and extremism. A sample of 221 devout Shias (a religious minority) from Pakistan participated in the survey-based experiment of this study (males = 108, females = 113; ages ranging from 19 to 38 years, Mage = 22, SD = 2.13; experimental condition = 111, control condition = 110). The results supported the key hypotheses of the study: identification with a minority (Shia Identity) leads to both Harmonious Passion (HP) and Obsessive Passion (OP); when the Shia Identity was threatened, HP and OP scores were lower. Furthermore, HP predicted peaceful activism whereas, under a threat to identify, OP increased and showed a significantly higher violent stance, predicting religious extremism. These findings support the assumption that HP leads to Peaceful Activism, whereas OP is associated with increased support for Extremism and Hatred. The results of this study replicated existing theoretical and empirical predictions about passion pathways and threats to religious identity. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of contemporary identity threats and activism strategies among Muslim minorities in Pakistan.