Five-Dimension Scale of Re­ligiosity (FDSR)

Variable:

The Five-Dimension Scale of Re­ligiosity (FDSR) measures the major dimen­sions of religiosity first described by Glock (1962). They include the ideological (be­lief), intellectual(knowledge), ritualistic (re­ligious behavior), experiential (feeling and emotion), and consequential (effect of reli­gion in everyday life) dimensions. Five Guttman-type scales were constructed, one for each aspect. Faulkner and DeJong as­sume that his typology represents separate and distinct components of religiosity.

Description:

Faulkner and DeJong base their measure on the assumption that these dimensions are crucial. Unfortunately, there has not been a consensus about the nature of this multidimensional construct in more than a decade of research.

The authors propose a Guttman scaling procedure that results in five individual scores rather than a single summary score on Glock’s dimensions. The items for each scale are arranged sequentially from stronger to weaker statements of attitude, and it is presumed that respondents who agree with stronger statements also agree with all weaker items.

The five scales are composed either of four or five items, each containing from two to six options. Scoring involves counting the positive responses indicated by the as­terisk on the scales provided in the appen­ dix. For example, if a person has a score of three on the ideological scale, we know she is not as high as a score-four person but is higher than a score-two person. Further, this indicates that she “affirmed the keyed response on questions three through five, but to no others.” This allows the researcher, theoretically, to know an individual’s pat­ tern of response for an entire scale.

Practical Considerations:

This instrument’s 23 items require less than 10 minutes to complete. Beyond providing the actual scales in the initial article, no special in­structions are provided for administering or scoring. Presumably the scales are pre­sented in the order given, but without the la­ bels. Some scoring confusion may result from referring at times to the whole instru­ment as a scale, the five scales, individual items on each scale, and each option in every item. Lettering the options and se­quentially numbering all 23 items might re­ duce confusion.

Since these scales were developed for re­ search purposes, the authors assume more knowledge of the Guttman scaling proce­dure than many users will have. For further detail regarding Guttman scaling and scor­ing, see Ford (1950). Basically, one’s score on a scale is the total number of items indi­cating a traditional religious response. For a five-item scale, the scores range from 0 through 5. Grouped data are then translated into percentage of positive responses.

Norms/Standardization:

The five scales have not been standardized. Since these scales are used exclusively for research pur­poses, no manual is provided to assist in ad­ ministration, scoring, or interpretation.

Reliability:

Test-retest or other reliability coefficients were not reported, but the coefficient of reproducibility indicates the unidi­mensionality strength of a Guttman-type scale. The accepted minimum level is .90. All five scales met this minimum standard when initially tested at Pennsylvania State University in 1966 on a sample of 362 un­dergraduates. In 1968, Clayton reported sta­tistics on 873 undergraduate respondents from a Southern Protestant private univer­sity. Clayton’s sample yielded five coeffi­cients of reproducibility equal to or higher than the Penn State sample. It appears that these scales have demonstrated an accept­ able level of reliability.

Validity:

Faulkner and Delong (1966), Clayton (1968), Clayton and Gladden (1974), and Delong, Faulkner, and Warland (1976) provide evidence that all five scales more than adequately met the minimum cri­teria of unidimensionality. However, the fact that all five scales in all data sets are unidimensional says nothing about their in­ dependence from one another. Intercorrela­tion of these scales on widely diverse sam­ples, as well as many factor analyses (both varimax and oblique rotation), yield empiri­cal results that are vehemently argued in one of two directions. Either the five-dimen­sional scales measure five real and separate dimensions of religiosity or the five-dimen­sional scales measure different aspects of ideological commitment manifested in sev­eral directions.

Researchers agree on the dominance of the ideological factor over all other dimen­sions. In a factor analytic study, Clayton and Gladden (1974) report that the ideological commitment factor accounts for 78 percent of the common variance for their 1967 sample and 83 percent of the variance for the 1970 sample. Other minor factors were ex­tracted, but a second-order factor analysis yielded one general factor. Clayton and Gladden conclude that “religiosity is essen­tially a single-dimension phenomenon com­ posed primarily of ideological commitment with experience and practice being evidence of the strength of that initial and core com­mitment at the belief level” (p. 141).

In the initial study, the between-scale correlation coefficients ranged between .58 (between ideological and intellectual) and .36 (between experience and consequential) (Faulkner & Delong, 1966). These are typical moderate correlations as reported from several studies. They argued that the moder­ ate correlations supported the obvious mul­tidimensionality of such a complex phenomenon as religiosity. By 1976, they make a small concession that “the time may have come to consider social consequences as primarily a dependent variable rather than an integral part of religiosity” (Delong, Faulkner & Warland, 1976, p. 883). They concede that the consequential dimension may only be a result of the other dimensions operating. Nevertheless, they hold fast to multidimensional theory, arguing that their instrument has validly tapped the construct. The problem seems to be one of speci­ficity versus generality in measuring the re­ligious variable. Delong, Faulkner, and Warland (1976) argue that generalized and specific definitions of religiosity are com­patible. While they believe their findings support multidimensionality, it is their judg­ment that “the one-not-five or the three-not­ eleven debates over the number of dimen­sions of religiosity are primarily a function of level of abstraction and the subdivision of dimensions” (p. 884).

Another criticism by Weigert and Thomas (1969) is the wording of items used to measure Glock’s dimensions. They criti­ cize the validity of this instrument on the grounds that the same semantic categories of stimuli (i.e., use of the words “view,” “opinion,” and “believe” in items found on the ideological as well as the intellectual di­mensions) are used. There are further exam­ples: the knowledge dimension contains three “belief” items; the ritualistic dimen­sion has two items that use the words “feel” and “believe.” While this is not exhaustive, the point is made that Weigert and Thomas believe the authors do not faithfully con­ struct items that validly measure the origi­nal dimensions proposed by Glock. Faulkner and Delong (1969) wrote a rejoinder to Weigert and Thomas that effectively blunted much of their critique.

The question of construct validity, then, is still open, and it amounts to a debate over the interpretation of the findings of diverse data sets. The scales are designed for re­ search only and are not recommended for clinical assessment of religiosity.

Five-Dimension Scale of Religiosity

Ideological Scale

• *l. Yes, I believe this.
• 2. I am uncertain about this.
• 3. No, I do not believe this.

• *l. I believe in a Divine God, creator of the Universe, who knows my innermost thoughts and feelings, and to whom one day I shall be accountable.
• 2. I believe in a power greater than myself, which some people call God and some people call Nature.
• 3. I believe in the worth of humanity but not in a God or a Supreme Being.
• 4. The so-called universal mysteries are ultimately knowable according to the scientific method based on natural laws.
• 5. I am not quite sure what I believe.
• 6. I am an atheist.

• *I. Yes, God’s forgiveness comes only after repentance.
• 2. No, God does not demand repentance.
• 3. I am not in need of repentance.

• *1. God has and continues to act in the history of mankind.
• 2. God acted in previous periods but is not active at the present time.
• 3. God does not act in human history.

• *1. The Bible is God’s Word and all it says is true.
• *2. The Bible was written by men inspired by God, and its basic moral and religious teachings are true, but because writers were men, it contains some human errors.
• 3. The Bible is a valuable book because it was written by wise and good men, but God had nothing to do with it.
• 4. The Bible was written by men who lived so long ago that it is of little value today.

Intellectual Scale

• *1. Literally true history.
• 2. A symbolic account which is no better or worse than any other account of the beginning.
• 3. Not a valid account of creation.

• *1. I believe the report of the miracles in the Bible; that is, they occurred through a set­ ting aside of natural laws by a higher power.
• 2. I do not believe in the so-called miracles of the Bible. Either such events did not occur at all, or, if they did, the report is inaccurate, and they could be explained upon scientific grounds if we had the actual facts.
• 3. I neither believe nor disbelieve the so-called miracles of the Bible. No evidence which I have considered seems to prove conclusively that they did or did not happen as recorded.

• *I. Strongly agree
• *2. Agree
• 3. Disagree
• 4. Strongly disagree

*Three or more books correctly identified.

Ritualistic Scale

• *I. No
• 2. Uncertain
• 3. Yes

• *1. One hour or more
• *2. One-half hour
• 3. None

• * l. Three or more
• *2. Two
• 3. One
• 4. None

• *1. Prayer is a regular part of my behavior.
• *2. I pray primarily in times of stress and/or need, but not much otherwise.
• 3. Prayer is restricted pretty much to formal worship services.
• 4. Prayer is only incidental to my life.
• 5. I never pray.

• *1. A religious official.
• 2. Either a religious official or a civil authority.
• 3. A civil authority.

Experiential Scale

• *1. Strongly agree
• 2. Agree
• 3. Disagree

• *I. Frequently
• *2. Occasionally
• 3. Rarely
• 4. Never

• *l. Agree
• 2. Uncertain
• 3. Disagree

• *1. Strongly agree
• *2. Agree
• 3. Disagree

• *l. Agree
• 2. Uncertain
• 3. Disagree

Consequential Scale

• *I. They should not be open.
• 2. I am uncertain about this.
• 3. They have a legitimate right to be open.

• *1. People who identify themselves with the church to the extent that they participate in its worship services should uphold its moral teachings as well.
• 2. Sexual intercourse prior to marriage is a matter of individual responsibility.

• *I. He definitely would.
• *2. He probably would.
• 3. Uncertain.
• 4. He probably would not.
• 5. He definitely would not.

• *l. Yes
• 2. Uncertain
• 3. No

Location:

Subsequent Research:

References