Impact of Motivation, Religiosity and Intrapersonal Conflict on Consistency in Religious Brotherhood Vocation in Africa

Abstract

Inconsistency in religious vocation is a global problem with such negative effects as vocation attrition, prejudice against and distrust of the religious people. The phenomenon hampers the Church’s mission. Often the environment and time are blamed for the inconsistency. So far in Africa, psychological issues have not been seriously considered as the possible root inconsistency in religious vocation. The aim of the study was therefore to explain, from psychological perspective, the noticed inconsistency in religious vocation. Embedded mixed methods, single case study design was used for the study. The population for the study was 17 aspirants who applied for admission into one male religious institute in Nigeria. Purposive sampling, and specifically judgment sampling strategy, was used to include all the 17 aspirants in the study. Semi-structured depth interview and Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank, a projective test, were used for the data collection. The analysis of the data was based on three themes: intrapsychic conflict, religiosity and motivation. The result of the study indicated that the participants were extrinsically motivated and had utilitarian type of religiosity. The number of participants (94.1%) who scored above the cutoff mark in Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank indicated that they had significant maladjustment problem. The conclusion of the study was that intrapsychic conflict could have been the determinant of the extrinsic motivation and utilitarian religiosity that the participants demonstrated. With such psychological disposition, consistency in religious vocation may not be guaranteed. Therefore, the possible explanation for the inconsistency among the religious brothers in Africa could be that on entrance the religious had basic psychological problem, which prevents consistency in due course.

Keywords: Religious vocation, intrapsychic conflict, religiosity, motivation, consistency