Transcript Religious discourse as a cultural resource of Dialogical Self

THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE DIALOGICAL SELF
Cambridge, UK, August 26-29th 2008
Thou shalt have no other Me before You?
Religious discourse as a cultural resource of Dialogical Self
Rosa Scardigno, Giuseppe Mininni & Amelia Manuti
[email protected] – [email protected]
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 configuration of the self, as internal and external religious positionings;
• the affective dimension of 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 (Xm=25.86)
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 Argumentation and the Modality as rising from discourses.
MAIN RESULTS
The spatial configuration
The features of ‘religious self ’ as told by ‘religious I’
Catholics
• religious positions (both
personal and social) are
always included
• they never reach the
highest overall prominence
• God is always included,
very often in overall
prominence
• other positions are: Mary,
the
Saints,
religious
community
Buddhists
Catholics
Internal
• in few cases religious or Subjectivity • Agentivity:
voluntary
religious
spiritual
positions
are
agreement (“I realized my
positions
included
religious self through my
• many and relevant positions
work”)
are linked to “indipendence”
• Passivity: religious life as a
“calling” (“God is doing
External
• religious
values
and
good through us”)
religious
practices are always included
• Affectivity
markers:
positions
• they are voiced in various
repetitions (“that hope…
ways (e.g. “cause-effect law”,
that
hope…”),
modals
“the buddhist group”, “Soka
(“they have surely turned my
Gakkai”)
life”) generalization words
The affective dimension
(“we were two millions to
• Positive correlations between religious self and overall actual self
pray all together to an only
in relation to positive affect (r= .601)*, negative affect (r= .627)* and
God”)
self-affirmation (r=. 642)*
Argumentat • Models
of
action:
• Significant differences for negative affect, in the valuation of
ion
internalization of values
religious self, t(20,22)=8.264*, and of overall self, t(20,22)=8.222*.
(“the desire of doing
something
good
and
concrete”) and trust in God
(“I relied on God and He
showed me the way”)
20
18
16
14
12
Catholics
Buddhist
10
8
*p≤.05
6
4
2
0
Religious Self
General Self
Modality
Buddhists
• 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”)
• 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”)
• Metaphors: “it’s a choise • Metaphors: “I feel a
that coloured my life”; “we winner”, “buddhism is to
are pencils in God’s hands” stand up alone”
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.
References
Benson, C. (2001) The cultural psychology of self. Place, morality and art in human worlds, Routledge: Diego, CA: Academic Press
Mininni, G. (1992) Diatesti. Per una psicosemiotica del discorso sociale, Napoli: Liguori
London-New York
Belzen, J.A. (2003) “Culture, religion and the ‘dialogical self ’: Roots and character of a secular Mininni, G. (2007) “L’assetto discorsivo della psicologia culturale”, in B.M. Mazzara (ed.)
Prospettive di psicologia culturale, Roma: Carocci, pp. 77-104
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 Mininni, G., Scardigno, R.. & Rubino, R.. (2008) “The Gestalt texture of discourse”, in Gestalt
Theory Journal (in press)
Practice”, in Culture & Psychology, Vol. 7(3), pp. 323-365
Squire, C. (ed.) (2000) Culture in psychology, Routledge: London
Hermans, H.J.M. & Kempen, H.J.G. (1993) The dialogical self: Meaning as movement, San