2026 Articles

Religion's Role in Societal Power: Expanding Perspectives on Religion's Individual, Interpersonal, and Intergroup Functions

Solomon, Larisa Heiphetz; Nesbit, James E.

Work on the psychology of religion has considered a number of functions that religion may serve, including those at the individual, interpersonal, and intergroup level. The current work argues that incorporating perspectives focused on power at the societal level would fruitfully extend this literature and advance social psychology more broadly. We begin by discussing examples of functions at levels of analysis typically considered in prior work, such as reducing threat (individual level), facilitating relationships (interpersonal level), and promoting people's perception that their in-groups are optimally distinct from out-groups (intergroup level). We then propose that scholars can fruitfully incorporate a fourth level of analysis by considering how and why people use religion to achieve goals related to societal power (e.g., determining the distribution of power within a society). We argue that people can use religion both to support and to resist current power structures and that religion may be particularly effective at facilitating goals related to societal power because of religion's deep connection to morality in many laypeople's minds. This perspective builds on prior theorizing regarding religion and morality, integrates across sub-areas within psychology, and strengthens connections between psychology and related disciplines to provide novel insight into how and why people use religion to achieve societal goals.