The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Basic Ideas and Construction Principles
2.1. Identification of Dimensions of Religiosity
2.2. Generalizability of Religious Contents
2.3. The Problem of the General Importance of Religiosity
3. Revision of the Five-Dimensional Model of Religiosity
- From a sociological perspective, the intellectual dimension refers to the social expectation that religious people have some knowledge of religion, and that they can explain their views on transcendence, religion and religiosity. In the personal religious construct system this dimension is represented as themes of interest, hermeneutical skills, styles of thought and interpretation, and as bodies of knowledge. A general indicator for the intellectual dimension is the frequency of thinking about religious issues. It indicates how often religious contents are “updated” through the medium of thinking, which leads into the heart of the intellectual dimension. Furthermore, the content of this indicator is independent of any confessional bias or religious affiliation. It can therefore be applied across religions.
- The dimension of ideology refers to the social expectation that religious individuals have beliefs regarding the existence and the essence of a transcendent reality and the relation between the transcendence and human. In the personal religious construct system this dimension is represented as beliefs, unquestioned convictions and patterns of plausibility. General indicators of this dimension should focus only on the aspect of the plausibility of the existence of a transcendent reality, e.g., “To what extend do you believe in the existence of God or something divine”. This “basic-belief” is common to most religious traditions, because it is a prerequisite for all further concepts and dogmas concerning the essence of this reality. Once a respondent considers transcendent reality as plausible, specific constructions of transcendence as prevalent in different traditions can become psychologically relevant.
- The dimension of public practice refers to the social expectation that religious individuals belong to religious communities which is manifested in the public participation in religious rituals and in communal activities. In the personal religious construct system this dimension is represented as patterns of action and as a sense of belonging with respect to a certain social body as well as to a certain ritualized imagination of the transcendence. The general intensity of this dimension can be measured easily by inquiring about the frequency with which somebody takes part in religious services. In interreligious studies it is recommendable to vary the label for religious service according to the religious affiliation of the respondents—e.g. “church attendance” for Christians, and “Friday prayer” for Muslims.
- The dimension of private practice refers to the social expectation that religious individuals devote themselves to the transcendence in individualized activities and rituals in private space. In the personal religious construct system this dimension is represented as patterns of action and a personal style of devotion to the transcendence. It makes sense to consider both prayer and meditation when measuring the general intensity of private practices, because they express basic and irreducible forms of addressing oneself to transcendence. Inherent to the structure of prayer is the act of addressing a “counterpart.” This dynamic implies a dialogical pattern of spirituality. In contrast, meditation is structured more fundamentally with reference to the self and/or an all-pervasive principle, and is therefore more in line with a participative pattern of spirituality. Considering both forms of private religious practice means that both basic patterns of spirituality are covered.
- The dimension of religious experience refers to the social expectation that religious individuals have “some kind of direct contact to an ultimate reality” ([9], p. 126) which affects them emotionally. In the personal religious construct system this dimension is represented as patterns of religious perceptions and as a body of religious experiences and feelings. Analogously to private practice, two basic forms of experiencing the transcendence can be distinguished, “one-to-one experiences” which correspond to a dialogical spirituality pattern and “experiences of being at one” corresponding to a participative one. Hence, we recommend the use of both expressions of religious experience for the measurement of its general intensity.
- The measurement of the general intensity of the five core-dimensions allows a representative estimation of the frequency and intensity of the activation of the personal religious construct system.
- The probability of a central position of the religious construct-system in personality increases with the overall intensity and frequency of its activation.
3.1. Construct Validity of the CRS
4. Versions of the Centrality Scale
4.1. Length of the CRS Versions
Dimension | Items for both the basic and interreligious versions | Basic CRS versions | Additional Items for the interreligious versions only | Interreligious CRSi versions | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Intellect | 01: How often do you think about religious issues? | CRS-5 | CRS-10 | CRS-15 | CRSi-7 | CRSi-14 | CRSi-20 | |||
Ideology | 02: To what extent do you believe that God or something divine exists? | |||||||||
Public practice | 03: How often do you take part in religious services? | |||||||||
Private practice | 04: How often do you pray? | 04b: How often do you meditate? | ||||||||
Experience | 05: How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that God or something divine intervenes in your life? | 05b: How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that you are in one with all? | ||||||||
Intellect | 06: How interested are you in learning more about religious topics? | |||||||||
Ideology | 07: To what extend do you believe in an afterlife—e.g. immortality of the soul, resurrection of the dead or reincarnation? | |||||||||
Public practice | 08: How important is to take part in religious services? | |||||||||
Private practice | 09: How important is personal prayer for you? | 09b: How important is meditation for you? | ||||||||
Experience | 10: How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that God or something divine wants to communicate or to reveal something to you? | 10b: How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that you are touched by a divine power? | ||||||||
Intellect | 11: How often do you keep yourself informed about religious questions through radio, television, internet, newspapers, or books? | |||||||||
Ideology | 12: In your opinion, how probable is it that a higher power really exists | |||||||||
Public practice | 13: How important is it for you to be connected to a religious community? | |||||||||
Private practice | 14: How often do you pray spontaneously when inspired by daily situations? | 14b: How often do you try to connect to the divine spontaneously when inspired by daily situations? | ||||||||
Experience | 15: How often do you experience situations in which you have the feeling that God or something divine is present? |
Dimension | Items for both the basic and interreligious versions | BasicCRS versions | Additional Items for the interreligious versions only | Interreligious CRSi versions | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Intellect | 01: Wie oft denken Sie über religiöse Fragen nach? | CRS-5 | CRS-10 | CRS-15 | CRSi-7 | CRSi-14 | CRSi-20 | |||
Ideology | 02: Wie stark glauben Sie daran, dass Gott oder etwas Göttliches existiert? | |||||||||
Public practice | 03: Wie häufig nehmen Sie an Gottesdiensten teil? | |||||||||
Private practice | 04: Wie häufig beten Sie? | 04b: Wie häufig meditieren Sie? | ||||||||
Experience | 05: Wie oft erleben Sie Situationen, in denen Sie das Gefühl haben, dass Gott oder etwas Göttliches in Ihr Leben eingreift? | 05b: Wie oft erleben Sie Situationen, in denen Sie das Gefühl haben, mit Allem Eins zu sein? | ||||||||
Intellect | 06: Wie stark interessieren Sie sich dafür, mehr über religiöse Themen zu erfahren? | |||||||||
Ideology | 07: Wie stark glauben Sie daran, dass es ein Leben nach dem Tod gibt?—z.B. Unsterblichkeit der Seele, Auferstehung von den Toten oder Reinkarnation? | |||||||||
Public practice | 08: Wie wichtig ist Ihnen die Teilnahme an Gottesdiensten? | |||||||||
Private practice | 09: Wie wichtig ist für Sie das persönliche Gebet? | 09b: Wie wichtig ist für Sie Meditation? | ||||||||
Experience | 10: Wie oft erleben Sie Situationen, in denen Sie das Gefühl haben, dass Gott oder etwas Göttliches Ihnen etwas sagen oder zeigen will? | 10b: Wie oft erleben Sie Situationen, in denen Sie das Gefühl haben, dass Sie von einer göttlichen Kraft berührt werden? | ||||||||
Intellect | 11: Wie oft informieren Sie sich durch Radio, Fernsehen, Internet, Zeitschriften oder Bücher über religiöse Fragen? | |||||||||
Ideology | 12: Wie hoch ist Ihrer Ansicht nach die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass es eine höhere Macht gibt? | |||||||||
Public practice | 13: Wie wichtig ist Ihnen die Verbindung zu einer religiösen Gemeinschaft? | |||||||||
Private practice | 14: Wie oft richten Sie mitten in Ihrem Alltag ein kurzes Gebet an Gott? | 14b: Wie oft suchen Sie mitten in Ihrem Alltag Kontakt zu einer göttlichen Kraft? | ||||||||
Experience | 15: Wie oft erleben Sie Situationen, in denen Sie das Gefühl haben, dass Gott oder etwas Göttliches anwesend ist? |
4.2. Application to Different Religious Traditions
4.3. Special Items for Different Religious Groups
4.4. Coding of Frequencies of Religious Behaviors
Objective frequencies of prayer (personal and obligatory) and meditation | Recoding into five levels | Objective frequencies of participation in religious services | Recoding into five levels |
---|---|---|---|
A) Several times a day | 5 | A) More than once a week | 5 |
C) More than once a week | 4 | C) One or three times a month | 4 |
D) Once a week | 3 | D) A few times a year | 3 |
E) Less often | 2 | ||
F) A few times a year | 2 | F) Never | 1 |
H) Never | 1 |
Score | Wording | Hermeneutics (presence of personal constructs in personality) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Frequency | Importance | |||
Categories of a five-level answer-scale | 5 | very often | very much so | Clear presence |
4 | often | quite a bit | ||
3 | occasionally | moderately | Transition area: background presence | |
2 | rarely | not very much | No or only marginal presence | |
1 | never | not at all |
5. Norm Values and Reliabilities in the Religion Monitor
6. Conclusions
Country | DE | AT | CH | IT | FR | ES | GB | PL | RU | IL | TR | MA | NG | ID | IN | TH | KR | AU | US | GT | BR | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | West | East | Musl. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
N | 959 | 759 | 200 | 1945 | 978 | 965 | 959 | 965 | 971 | 885 | 924 | 909 | 885 | 885 | 966 | 993 | 963 | 1048 | 990 | 971 | 979 | 977 | 965 | 985 | |
CRS-score | Percentile rank | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
“not-religious“ | 1.0 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 7 | 5 | ||||||||||||
1.2 | 7 | 4 | 19 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 17 | 3 | 12 | 12 | 4 | 14 | 10 | 1 | |||||||||||
1.4 | 12 | 6 | 37 | 1 | 11 | 5 | 2 | 26 | 6 | 17 | 1 | 18 | 7 | 20 | 15 | 2 | |||||||||
1.6 | 18 | 9 | 50 | 3 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 32 | 8 | 22 | 2 | 26 | 10 | 1 | 25 | 18 | 3 | ||||||||
1.8 | 21 | 13 | 54 | 5 | 20 | 11 | 5 | 39 | 12 | 29 | 4 | 34 | 14 | 2 | 29 | 23 | 5 | 1 | |||||||
2.0 | 28 | 19 | 63 | 7 | 25 | 15 | 7 | 43 | 18 | 35 | 5 | 43 | 17 | 1 | 4 | 35 | 28 | 8 | 2 | ||||||
“religious" | 2.2 | 35 | 26 | 67 | 10 | 31 | 21 | 10 | 47 | 22 | 41 | 7 | 48 | 22 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 41 | 34 | 11 | 3 | ||||
2.4 | 42 | 33 | 76 | 13 | 37 | 28 | 13 | 53 | 27 | 46 | 9 | 55 | 27 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 46 | 38 | 13 | 1 | 4 | ||
2.6 | 47 | 39 | 78 | 17 | 43 | 34 | 15 | 58 | 33 | 51 | 12 | 63 | 32 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 19 | 50 | 44 | 16 | 2 | 5 | ||
2.8 | 53 | 46 | 82 | 22 | 49 | 40 | 19 | 63 | 41 | 56 | 17 | 68 | 37 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 28 | 53 | 49 | 18 | 2 | 7 | ||
3.0 | 59 | 52 | 84 | 29 | 56 | 47 | 25 | 68 | 46 | 62 | 21 | 73 | 43 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 40 | 57 | 55 | 21 | 4 | 8 | ||
3.2 | 65 | 60 | 86 | 36 | 61 | 55 | 29 | 73 | 52 | 67 | 27 | 78 | 48 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 16 | 52 | 60 | 59 | 23 | 5 | 11 | ||
3.4 | 69 | 64 | 89 | 44 | 68 | 63 | 36 | 77 | 58 | 71 | 35 | 83 | 53 | 21 | 16 | 1 | 12 | 25 | 65 | 63 | 64 | 27 | 8 | 14 | |
3.6 | 75 | 71 | 90 | 54 | 73 | 69 | 43 | 82 | 64 | 76 | 43 | 88 | 59 | 31 | 23 | 4 | 20 | 36 | 77 | 66 | 69 | 32 | 12 | 18 | |
3.8 | 80 | 77 | 92 | 64 | 78 | 75 | 52 | 85 | 71 | 80 | 52 | 91 | 65 | 42 | 32 | 7 | 29 | 48 | 87 | 70 | 73 | 36 | 21 | 26 | |
“highly-religious“ | 4.0 | 85 | 82 | 93 | 71 | 84 | 81 | 63 | 89 | 77 | 83 | 63 | 94 | 71 | 55 | 44 | 12 | 41 | 61 | 93 | 75 | 77 | 42 | 34 | 35 |
4.2 | 90 | 88 | 96 | 81 | 88 | 86 | 73 | 93 | 83 | 88 | 73 | 97 | 78 | 67 | 56 | 21 | 57 | 74 | 96 | 81 | 82 | 53 | 48 | 48 | |
4.4 | 93 | 92 | 97 | 88 | 92 | 90 | 82 | 96 | 87 | 92 | 85 | 98 | 82 | 78 | 69 | 36 | 74 | 83 | 98 | 85 | 87 | 65 | 65 | 61 | |
4.6 | 97 | 96 | 99 | 93 | 95 | 95 | 92 | 98 | 92 | 95 | 95 | 99 | 89 | 91 | 80 | 55 | 88 | 93 | 99 | 90 | 92 | 75 | 87 | 78 | |
4.8 | 99 | 98 | 100 | 96 | 98 | 98 | 98 | 99 | 97 | 97 | 99 | 100 | 93 | 95 | 90 | 76 | 96 | 96 | 100 | 94 | 95 | 87 | 95 | 90 | |
5.0 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | ||||
M | 2.84 | 3.05 | 2.08 | 3.53 | 2.93 | 3.15 | 3.66 | 2.50 | 3.20 | 2.74 | 3.69 | 2.45 | 3.29 | 3.96 | 4.13 | 4.58 | 4.12 | 3.88 | 3.24 | 2.88 | 2.97 | 3.92 | 4.23 | 4.18 | |
SD | 1.10 | 0.99 | 0.98 | 0.86 | 1.06 | 0.97 | 0.89 | 1.13 | 1.04 | 1.15 | 0.81 | 0.96 | 1.12 | 0.63 | 0.61 | 0.38 | 0.55 | 0.62 | 0.62 | 1.30 | 1.19 | 0.99 | 0.52 | 0.70 |
References and Notes
- Stefan Huber. Zentralität und Inhalt: Ein neues multidimensionales Messmodell der Religiosität. Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 2003. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. “Zentralität und Inhalt. Eine Synthese der Messmodelle von Allport und Glock.” In Religiosität: Messverfahren und Studien zu Gesundheit und Lebensbewältigung. Neue Beiträge zur Religionspsychologie. Edited by Christian Zwingmann and Helfried Moosbrugger. Münster: Waxmann, 2004, pp. 79–105. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. “Are religious beliefs relevant in daily life? ” In Religion Inside and Outside Traditional Institutions. Edited by Heinz Streib. Lieden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2007, pp. 211–230. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. “Kerndimensionen, Zentralität und Inhalt. Ein interdisziplinäres Modell der Religiosität.” Journal für Psychologie 16 Article 05. (2008). www.journal-fuer-psychologie.de/jfp-3-2008-05.html. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. “Religion Monitor 2008: Structuring principles, operational constructs, interpretive strategies.” In What the World Believes: Analysis and Commentary on the Religion Monitor 2008. Edited by Bertelsmann-Stiftung. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann-Stiftung, 2009, pp. 17–51. [Google Scholar]
- Bertelsmann Stiftung, ed. What the World Believes: Analysis and Commentary on the Religion Monitor 2008. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann-Stiftung, 2009.
- Charles Y. Glock. “On the study of religious commitment.” Review of Recent Research Bearing on Religious and Character Formation. Research supplement to the July-August 1962, issue of Religious Education. , S-98–S-110.
- Charles Y. Glock. Religion in Sociological Perspective: Essays in the Empirical Study of Religion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973. [Google Scholar]
- Richard Stark, and Charles Y. Glock. American Piety: The Nature of Religious Commitment. Los Angeles, CA: Berkeley University Press, 1968. [Google Scholar]
- Andrew J. Weigert, and Darwin L. Thomas. “Religiosity in 5-D: A critical note.” Social Forces 48 (1969): 260–263. [Google Scholar]
- Joseph E. Faulkner, and Gordon F. DeJong. “Religiosity in 5-D: an empirical analysis.” Social Forces 45 (1966): 246–254. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. Dimensionen der Religiosität. Skalen, Messmodelle und Ergebnisse einer empirisch orientierten Religionspsychologie. Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, 1996. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber. “Die Semantik des empirischen Systems. Archimedischer Punkt und Achillesverse der sozialwissenschaftlichen Religionsforschung.” In Theologie im Gespräch mit empirisch arbeitenden Wissenschaften. Edited by Matthias Petzoldt. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012, pp. 13–34. [Google Scholar]
- Dale W. Wimberley. “Religion and role-identity: A structural symbolic interactionist conceptualisation of religiosity.” The Sociological Quarterly 30 (1969): 125–142. [Google Scholar]
- Sheldon Stryker. Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings, 1980. [Google Scholar]
- George C. Homans. Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. [Google Scholar]
- Gordon W. Allport, and J. Michael Ross. “Personal religious orientation and prejudice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5 (1967): 432–443. [Google Scholar]
- George A. Kelly. The Psychology of Personal Constructs. New York: Norton, 1955, 2 Vol. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber, and Volkhard Krech. “The religious field between globalization and regionalization – comparative perspectives.” In What the World Believes: Analysis and Commentary on the Religion Monitor 2008. Edited by Bertelsmann-Stiftung. Gütersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann-Stiftung, 2009, pp. 53–93. [Google Scholar]
- Stefan Huber, Matthias Allemand, and Odilo W. Huber. “The Relation between Forgiveness by God and Human Forgivingness. The Centrality of the Religiosity Makes the Difference.” Archive for the Psychology of Religion 33 (2011): 115–134. [Google Scholar]
- Gerd Gigerenzer, and Ulrich Hoffrage. “How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: frequency formats.” Psychological Review 102 (1995): 684–704. [Google Scholar]
- 1Furthermore, in the two ideological item 02 and 07 the reference to the probability of the existence of God or of an afterlife was replaced by the reference to belief (see [1,2,3]). This was undertaken in order to ease the understanding of the questions, as research on probabilities has shown that many people do not understand the concept and may not properly deal with probabilities (e.g., [21]). The new versions thus provide more unambiguous references and enhance reliability specifically in respondents with low numeracy.
© 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Share and Cite
Huber, S.; Huber, O.W. The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions 2012, 3, 710-724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030710
Huber S, Huber OW. The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions. 2012; 3(3):710-724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030710
Chicago/Turabian StyleHuber, Stefan, and Odilo W. Huber. 2012. "The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS)" Religions 3, no. 3: 710-724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030710
APA StyleHuber, S., & Huber, O. W. (2012). The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions, 3(3), 710-724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030710