Faith as a Coping Mechanism: Exploring Triggers and Expressions of Christian Commitment
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2025-07-09
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en
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This thesis explores the marketing concept of commitment within the domain of religion, using the Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) research tradition to investigate how individuals commit to the Christian faith and express that commitment through religious coping mechanisms. Through qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within the Catholic community of Maastricht, this study analyzes the data and explores the triggers of religious commitment and developed insights on commitment through the lens of Lazarus and Folkman’s coping theory. Unlike traditional marketing models of commitment—often limited to affective, normative, and continuance forms—religious commitment is, according to Pargament et al (2005), more profound, evolving from deep and intimate personal experiences and shaped by faith. Resulting in the guiding research questions: What triggers a commitment to the Christian religion?” and: “How is commitment to the Christian religion expressed through various coping styles?”. Findings suggest that Lazarus and Folkman’s coping styles can be expanded, resulting in a novel conceptual model that distinguishes between internal and external expressions of three primary coping styles: collaboration, deferring, and self-directing. These are further refined into six coping forms—such as “Private Devotion and Dialogue” and “Faithful Service”—that reveal how commitment is expressed within individuals and in their relationships with others and with God. The model shows that religious commitment often begins in moments of crisis, loss, or existential questioning and is reinforced through personal faith and community engagement. This study contributes to marketing, psychological, and theological theories by expanding commitment beyond transactional views, offering a nuanced understanding of it as dynamic, personal, and culturally embedded. Furthermore, it extends the coping theory with newly developed coping forms. The implications are relevant for religious institutions, marketers, and scholars interested in commitment, coping, and behavior where commitment is central.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen