Abstract: In contemporary era, inter-religious or inner-religious dialogues are the focus of clergies and scholars. The implementation of religious dialogues not only has a positive meaning for cultural exchanges, but also changes the process of intergroup relations. For religious dialogues, an usual expectation is to reduce religious or sectarian conflicts through faith communication, and to gradually increase mutual understanding and trust. As one of the paradigms of social psychology, "social identity theory"（SIT）is applicable to the analysis of inner-group and inter-group processes, so it can be used as a theoretical tool to interpret religious dialogues. Moreover,based on the study of dialogue process, the identity theory can also support the result expectation, and estimate the effects of the dialogue. The social identity analysis can reveal the internal mechanism of various religious dialogue patterns.
 

Key words: religious dialogue, social identity, psychology