Relational identities: Social identitiy and relational dimensions

The paper is based on the results of empirical research conducted within the project "Modernisation and the Identity of Croatian Society" on a representative sample of Croatian population. Social identity was defined as dimensiona; and relational, whereas dimensionality was defined through four conceptual categories (social, cultural, spatial and family-gender) which were operationalised on an instrument of 24 items. Factor analysis separated five dimensions of social identity (cultural, socio-professional, regional, national-religious and neighbourhood-local). Identity relations were defined through the relationship towards: self, others, nature, god and the world. Two hypotheses were checked in the paper: 1. Social identity is formed as relational identity and a correlation is expected between the social identity factor and the perception towards self, others, nature and god; 2. The relationship between the social identity dimensions and relational identity dimensions (self, others, nature, god) will enable the creation of a profile of each dimension of social identity. The results obtained mostly confirm the stated correlation hypotheses. The profile of social identity dimensions has been defined with the assistance of relational dimensions.