Rosa Scardigno, Giuseppe Mininni & Amelia Manutir. Religious discourse as a cultural resource of Dialogical Self

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Thou shalt have no other Me before You?
Religious discourse as a cultural resource of Dialogical Self
Rosa Scardigno, Giuseppe Mininni & Amelia Manutir.
scardigno@psico.uniba.it, g.mininni@psico.uniba.it
Department of Psychology – Bari University (Italy)

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The cultural-discursive approach to identity:

Cultural identities in times of globalization are “discursive multilevel positionings” (Mininni, 2007, 94) reflecting the ideals of the reference community (Benson, 2001) and otherness (Squire, 2000). The Dialogical Self applied to religious identity: Conceiving the self as an ensemble of relationships with both “actual” and “imagined” others (Hermans, Kempen, 1993), a religious person will be familiar with stories about religious signifiers (Belzen, 2003).

THE RESEARCH

The object of this work is to detect the relationship between the “religious self” and overall organization of the self. We investigate:

•the spatial configurationof the self, as internal and external religious positionings;

•the affective dimensionof religious self;

•the features of ‘religious me’ as told by ‘religious I’. Methodological tools:

•the Personal Position Repertoire(Hermans, 2001): a methodological elaboration of the spatial nature of the dialogical self;

•a modified version of Self Confrontation Method(Hermans, 2001), making use of a self-positions x affect matrix;

•the story: it was asked to tell an experience dealing with the “religious self”.Partecipants: 23 persons, 13 Catholics and 9 converted to Buddhism (Istituto Italiano Buddista Soka Gakkai) aged from 20 to 32

Method:

the stories have been analized through Diatextual Analysis(Mininni, 1992), a kind of Critical Discourse Analysis interested in catching the dynamics of reciprocal co-construction of text and context of enunciation. The psychosemiotic markers offered by the SAM model (Mininni, 2008) identify the Subjectivity, the Argumentationand the Modalityas rising from discourses.

MAIN RESULTS

The spatial configuration Group

•religious values and practices are always included

•they are voiced in various ways (e.g. “cause-effect law”, “the buddhist group”, “Soka Gakkai”)

•God is always included, very often in overall prominence

•other positions are: Mary, the Saints, religious community External religious positions

•in few cases religious or spiritual positions are included

•many and relevant positions are linked to “indipendence”

•religious positions (both personal and social) are always included

•they never reach the highest overall prominence

Internal religious positions Buddhists Catholics
The affective dimension

•Positive correlations between religious self and overall actual self in relationto positive affect (r= .601)*, negative affect (r= .627)* and self-affirmation (r=. 642)*

•Significant differences for negative affect, in the valuation of religious self, t(20,22)=8.264*, and of overall self, t(20,22)=8.222*.

Religious Self General Self Catholics Buddhist The features of ‘religious self’ as told by ‘religious I’ Group

•Metaphors: “I feel a winner”, “buddhism is to stand up alone”

•Metaphors: “it’s a choise that coloured my life”; “we are pencils in God’s hands”Modality

•Models of action: identity renewal (“I discovered the courage to live”), advantages of conversion (“the better my-self”) and strong actions (“we struggled against suffering”)

•Models of action: internalization of values (“the desire of doing something good and concrete”) and trust in God (“I relied on God and He showed me the way”) Argumentation

•Agentivity: management of his own experience (“we and no others are makers of our happyness”)

•Affectivity markers: repetitions (“I recited, recited and recited”), comparatives (“the more I recited the more I felt strong”), superlatives (“feeling of well-being and infinite potentialities”), positive polarization (“it has been wonderful”)

•Agentivity: voluntary agreement (“I realized my religious self through my work”)

•Passivity: religious life as a “calling” (“God is doing good through us”)

•Affectivity markers: repetitions (“that hope… that hope…”), modals (“they have surely turned my life”) generalization words (“we were two millions to pray all together to an only God”)
Subjectivity Buddhists Catholics

CONCLUDING REMARKS

•Dialogical self as useful theorization to catch new kinds of cultural identities and “hiphenated”images of self (e.g. the Italo-buddhist)

•The spatial configuration: religious external positionings show the relationship with God (for catholics) or the insertion of a new position reorganizing the identity configuration (for buddhists)

•The affective dimension:religious self as well integrated with the more general life experience; difference between catholic religion, focused on the values of poverty, humility and sacrifice and the buddhist school of Soka Gakkai, anchored to the self realization and satisfaction

•The features of ‘religious self’:metaphors as enlightening the religious experience. Catholics live their choise as a vocation; Buddhists experience an “identity renewal” as a consequence of conversion.

Benson, C. (2001) The cultural psychology of self. Place, morality and art in human worlds, Routledge: London-New York

Belzen, J.A. (2003) “Culture, religion and the ‘dialogical self’: Roots and character of a secular cultural psychology of religion”, in Archiv für Religionspsychologie, Vol. 25, pp. 7-24 Hermans, H.J.M. (2001) “The construction of a personal position repertoire: Method and Practice”, in Culture & Psychology, Vol. 7(3), pp. 323-365

Hermans, H.J.M. & Kempen, H.J.G. (1993) The dialogical self: Meaning as movement, SanDiego, CA: Academic Press Mininni, G. (1992)

Diatesti. Per una psicosemiotica del discorso sociale, Napoli: Liguori Mininni, G. (2007)

“L’assetto discorsivo della psicologia culturale”, in B.M. Mazzara (ed.) Prospettive di psicologia culturale, Roma: Carocci, pp. 77-104 Mininni, G., Scardigno, R.. & Rubino, R.. (2008)

“The Gestalt texture of discourse”, in Gestalt Theory Journal(in press) Squire, C. (ed.) (2000)
Culture in psychology, Routledge: London References Graphic