Identities, Values, and Religion: A Study Among Muslim, Other Immigrant, and Native Belgian Young Adults After the 9/11 Attacks

Individual identity statuses (Marcia, 1980) and collective (national and transnational) identities; value (Schwartz, 1992) hierarchies and priorities; religion-spirituality; social desirability; and opinions related to the September 11, 2001 attacks were investigated in 3 groups of young adults living in Belgium (N = 246): native Belgians, immigrants from Muslim Mediterranean countries, and immigrants from other countries. Similar patterns were found across the 3 groups with regard to value hierarchies and the ways religion is related to identity statuses (achievement and foreclosure), value priorities (conservation, low autonomy, and low hedonism), social desirability (impression management, but not self-deception), and collective identities (transnational). However, young Muslim immigrants differed in their high religiosity, tendency for non-explorative identity statuses, values that motivated openness to transnational identities, and correlates of their high anti-Americanism in the interpretation of the September 11 attacks. These and other cross-cultural differences are discussed.