Caring about other people's religiosity levels or not: how relative degree of religiosity and self-construal shape donation intention

摘要

People maintain their lives in a social context. Many of their actions are affected by social conditions such as their relative status, relative education, relative wealth, and relative religiosity compared to their community. For instance, the intention to make a donation - the donation intention - may not only be shaped by the degree to which the individual is religious but also the individual's relative degree of religiosity compared to the community. In particular, the relative degree sometimes has more predictive power than the non-relative or absolute degree. Past research has shown that as the religiosity level increases, so does the donation intention. However, donation intention from the perspective of the relative degree of religiosity has yet to be examined. Drawing on self-construal theory and optimal distinctiveness theory, this study examines how the interaction between self-construal and relative degree of religiosity shapes the intention to make a donation. The results of multiple regression analysis, which is based on survey data collected from 595 respondents, showed that interdependent (independent) self-construal is positively (negatively) associated with donation intention when the relative degree of religiosity is low (M-SD), whereas interdependent (independent) self-construal is negatively (positively) associated with donation intention when the relative degree of religiosity is high (M + SD). These results supported H-1 and H-2, suggesting that self-construal and religiosity interacted to produce donation intention in line with optimal distinctiveness theory.