The micro context is the more immed

The micro context is the more immediate world of the family, ethnic group, religious
community, and local neighborhood. These groupings play an important role in the creation
of a sense of identity and belonging. Micro contextual groups interact with the macro
context in various ways; some approve and facilitate context; others reject or seek to alter
the macro context. The micro context can counteract the influence of the macro context,
intentionally or unintentionally. For instance, isolation from the wider world can intensify
the impact of a religious group on a person and religious community.
Psychologists typically do not directly address the macro context of religious
conversion because their emphasis is on the individual. Until recently, psychologists
tended to focus on issues that ignored or downplayed cultural and social variables.
However, we cannot talk about a person’s psyche adequately without contextualizing.
The person growing up in a small, remote town lives in a very different world than the
person in an urban environment with its supermarket of social, moral, and religious
options. A Christian or a Buddhist in the People’s Republic of China will have a
different set of symbols, rituals, and myths with which to experience religious/spiritual
life than a Christian or a Buddhist in Korea or Indonesia. The context not only provides
the social/cultural matrix which shapes a person’s myths, rituals, symbols, and beliefs,
it also has a powerful impact in terms of access, mobility, and opportunity for even
coming into contact with religious and spiritual options. The increased mobility and
multiple modes of communication (especially the instantaneous flow of information via
the internet) profoundly shape the modern world. Not only is it easier for the advocate
to move into new areas to propagate religious or spiritual practices and beliefs, but
increased mobility also enables a potential convert to move more readily from old
patterns of social relationships, which may feel constricting, into new options. The vast
numbers of people around the world who are moving from rural to urban areas are
exposed to new modes of thought, experiences, relationships, ideologies, religions, and
so forth (see Yang 2006).