Preference Structures and Normative Constraints in Movements Outside, Between, and Within Religious Organisations

This chapter briefly reviews a preference-based theory of choice, to show how individuals' cognitive schemas are important for voluntary organisations, and are influenced by them. In doing so, religious organisations will be equated with firms in a market selling particular cultural goods to individual buyers. The chapter integrates normative constraints on choices into this theory. It discusses the consequences of this theory for configurations of membership in voluntary organisations outside, between, and within established denominations. The chapter examines how the presence or absence of a hierarchical nesting of organisations influences individual schemas related to religious groups, choices made about religious participation, and constraints levied against individuals' choices. It links the authors' preference-based theory of choice with Lawler's theory of affective attachments and ties to nested groups.