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Living together in culturally plural societies poses numerous challenges for members of ethnocultural groups and for the larger society. An important goal of these societies is to achieve positive intercultural relations among all their peoples. Successful management of these relations depends on many factors including a research-based understanding of the historical, political, economic, religious and psychological features of the groups that are in contact. The core question is ‘how we shall we all live together?’ In the project reported in this paper (Mutual Intercultural Relations in Plural Societies; MIRIPS), we seek to provide such research by reviewing three core psychological hypotheses of intercultural relations (multiculturalism, contact and integration) in 21 culturally plural societies. The main goal of the project is to evaluate these hypotheses across societies within the MIRIPS project in order to identify if there are some basic psychological principles that underlie intercultural relations panculturally. If there are, the eventual goal is to employ the findings to propose some policies and programmes that may improve the quality of intercultural relationship globally. An internal meta-analysis using the MIRIPS project data showed that the empirical findings from these societies generally support the validity of the three hypotheses. Implications for the development of policies and programmes to enhance the quality of intercultural relations are discussed.

This article examines intercultural relations in Kabardino-Balkaria. Among a great number of ethnic groups living in Kabardino-Balkaria, Kabardians and Balkars are one of the largest (they are so-called titular ethnic groups). Russians are the second largest of the ethnic groups after Kabardians. We report here the results of an empirical study of the intercultural relations, mutual acculturation, and adaptation of Kabardians and Balkars ( N = 285) and Russians ( N = 249). Specifically, we examine the relevance of three hypotheses formulated to understand intercultural relations: the multiculturalism hypothesis, the integration hypothesis, and the contact hypothesis. We conducted path analysis in AMOS with two samples: a sample of Russians and a sample of the two main ethnic groups (Kabardians and Balkars), and we further compared the path models with each other. The results revealed significant effects of security, intercultural contacts, multicultural ideology, acculturation strategies, and acculturation expectations on attitudes, life satisfaction, and self-esteem in both samples. These findings partially confirm the three hypotheses in both groups. However, we also identified a regionally specific pattern. We found that, in the Russian sample, the integration strategy was negatively related to wellbeing, while contact with the dominant ethnic group was positively related to well-being. At the same time, in the sample of Kabardians and Balkars, acculturation expectations of integration and assimilation were positively related to well-being. In the article, we discuss these regional specifics.

This paper describes the impact of religious identity and perceived parent-child psychological closeness on their value similarity in different religious contexts (contexts of religious minority and majority). The total sample includes 454 respondents. Parents and adolescent children of 118 Russian Orthodox Christian families from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR) (with 72% Muslim population) and 109 Russian Orthodox families from the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania (RNO-A) (with 91% Orthodox population) were surveyed using a questionnaire measuring values (PVQ-R of Schwartz), religious identity and scales of perceived parent-child closeness assessed by parents and adolescents developed by the authors. The results of structural equation modelling showed that religious identity of Russian Orthodox adolescents in KBR predicts parent-child value similarity (PCVS), while the perceived psychological closeness of adolescents with their parents negatively related to their value similarity. In RNO-A parental religious identity and psychological closeness assessed by both parents and children predict the PCVS. The discussion of the results is devoted to the role of religious context in the impact of religious identity and perceived psychological closeness on PCVS.

This study presents the results of empirical research on the relationship between strength and positivity of religious identification and attitudes towards economic behaviour in a group of Orthodox Christians and Sunni Muslims in Russia (N=820). In order to measure strength and positivity of religious identification, we constructed scales based on the theory of social identity. Attitudes toward models of economic behaviour were measured using methodology to measure economic attitudes based on the scenario approach. The results revealed that attitudes towards three models of economic behaviour form a single factor of economic involvement. In addition, generalized economic involvement was confirmed by a simultaneous CFA in both religious groups. In our study we found that strength and positivity of religious identification are differently associated with the attitudes toward economic involvement. Thus, it was concluded that the strength of religious identification is not conducive to attitudes reflecting economic involvement. Positivity of religious identification was found to have a positive effect on economic involvement attitudes. However, further analysis demonstrated that the relationship between positivity of religious identification and economic involvement had interfaith specifics: positivity of religious identification was positively related to the models of economic involvement only in the group of Christians, while in the group of Muslims, this relationship is insignificant. The results are discussed in terms of features of religious identification in these two groups.