This paper examines how religious identity is associated with religious behavior in Japan. Prior research suggests that ritual practices rather than doctrines and theology are more important for Japanese religiousness. While many studies discuss various ritual behaviors in Japan, few researchers adopted statistical analysis to explore the Japanese practice of visiting religious places for prayer. Moreover, although prior United States-based research has demonstrated that religious identity is associated with religious behavior, little is known about whether such an association exists in Japan. In this study, I analyze a nationally representative sample of Japanese adults and examine whether the subjective importance of religious identity is associated with the frequency of visiting places such as temples, shrines, or churches for prayer. The results show that there is a bivariate relationship between religious identity importance and the frequency of visiting for prayer. Multivariate analyses reveal that religious identity importance is positively associated with visiting even when controlling for religious affiliation and other demographic attributes. Moreover, the results indicate that religious affiliations (Buddhism, other religions) are positively associated with visiting. However, the effect of other religions is much stronger than that of Buddhism. Given the existing scholarship on Japanese religiousness, the findings suggest that the behavioral implication of religious identity could differ by religious affiliation. Overall, this study extends prior research by empirically demonstrating the substantial role of religious identity for religious ritual behavior in Japan and further advances our theoretical understanding of Japanese religiousness.

中文翻译：

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在日本参观宗教场所祈祷：宗教身份如何影响宗教行为？

本文研究了宗教身份如何与日本的宗教行为相关联。先前的研究表明，仪式实践而不是教义和神学对日本的宗教信仰更重要。虽然许多研究讨论了日本的各种仪式行为，但很少有研究人员采用统计分析来探索日本访问宗教场所祈祷的做法。此外，虽然之前在美国进行的研究表明宗教身份与宗教行为有关，但对于日本是否存在这种关联知之甚少。在这项研究中，我分析了一个具有全国代表性的日本成年人样本，并检查宗教身份的主观重要性是否与去寺庙、神社或教堂等地方祈祷的频率有关。结果表明，宗教身份重要性与拜访祈祷的频率之间存在双变量关系。多变量分析表明，即使在控制宗教信仰和其他人口统计特征的情况下，宗教身份的重要性也与访问呈正相关。此外，结果表明宗教信仰（佛教、其他宗教）与访问呈正相关。然而，其他宗教的影响远比佛教强得多。鉴于日本宗教信仰的现有学术研究，研究结果表明宗教身份的行为含义可能因宗教信仰而异。全面的，