Gordon Allport defined intrinsic religious orientation as the polar opposite of the utilitarian and instrumental extrinsic orientation. On the other hand, Rodney Stark and associates developed a theory of religion according to which the utilitarian motive is at the very core of (any) religious motivation. A study of undergraduate students from three social settings with different dominant religions (Catholic, Islamic and Eastern Orthodox) showed that the intrinsic religious orientation and the perceived religious rewards, such as expectations of eternal life in heaven or perceptions of God's help in everyday life, tend to form a unidimensional construct in all the observed samples. On the one hand, these results shed new light on the assumption of intrinsic religious orientation being free of utilitarian and instrumental motives. On the other hand, they lend substantial support to the basic assumption of the rational choice approach to religion.
COBISS.SI-ID: 18392328
The study analyzed whether the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the establishment of succeeding mono-national states was the expression of "longing" of mass proportions on the part of the nationalities within respective federal units. Using the data from two pan-Yugoslav surveys from the period preceding the dissolution, results were obtained that indicated a very limited support for this hypothesis. More specifically, results indicated that support for emancipation was rather weak, among youth in 1986 and even among the adult population in 1990, although some significant mean differences between the federal units and between major nationalities within them were evident. Specifically, opinions favoring independence were detected among Kosovo Albanians and later among Slovenians in Slovenia. In addition, findings also indicated that those with higher socioeconomic status were not more inclined toward independence. Results thus pointed more towards the idea that the dissolution was indeed instigated by a small group of "political entrepreneurs" not captured by the survey data.
COBISS.SI-ID: 18648072
The present study examined several measures of political culture among 2,178 social science students (M age = 19.8 years, SD = 1.89) in eight post-Yugoslaventities. The aggregate-level results indicate that socio-economically less developed environments had higher average levels of subject political culture, which is characterised by authoritarianism, general traditionalism, traditional gender role attitudes, state paternalism and general distrust. The only exception from this tendency was the measure of economic egalitarianism, where between-country differences were not significant. The authors demonstrate that, nearly two decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, some of the same value differences are still found in its successor territories. They conclude that the process of democratic consolidation is far from over in post-Yugoslav entities and that Slovenia comes closest to achieving that goal in the political-cultural context.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30309469