Mixed Method Religion

We explore how Christians and Buddhists, of different religiosity, react to death within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Previous research has found that the interaction between cultural level, individual level and situational level factors are necessary to consider for a more comprehensive grasp of a phenomenon. We look at how Religion x Religiosity x Threat of Covid interact and show different relationships between these variables and dehumanization. We find that at higher levels of disruption by Covid-19 on religious practice (but not lower levels), Christians high on extrinsic religiosity (but low on intrinsic religiosity) dehumanized religious outgroups the most, whereas Christians high on extrinsic and high on intrinsic religiosity dehumanized religious outgroups significantly less. At low levels of impact of Covid-19 on religious practice, only higher levels of extrinsic religiosity were related to higher levels of dehumanization. Buddhists, regardless of level of religiosity and impact of Covid-19 to religious practice, consistently showed a relatively low level of dehumanization against religious outgroups. Findings are triangulated through multiple sources of data and further elaborated through qualitative coding of open-ended responses. These enactment patterns contribute to the religion and terror management literature and offer insights for potentially developing inclusive understanding with outgroup members.