Towards an improved measure of intrinsic/extrinsic religious motivation.

Religious motivation is a construct that has been the focus of decades of research. The Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) and variations of it, including the Age Universal Intrinsic-Extrinsic Scale-12 (AUIES-12), are the most commonly used measures of religious motivation. But from the initial use of these measures there has been questions concerning their theoretical foundation and scale reliabilities. The purpose of this dissertation was to 1) test the factor structure of the AUIES-12 and investigate its scale reliabilities; 2) investigate, through CFA, the factor structure of a new measure of religious motivation, the Measure of Religious Motivation (MRM), which introduces a fourth factor of religious motivation, Extrinsic-Rules Keeping, to be considered; and 3) test the theory of Extrinsic-Rules Keeping religious motivation by examining the relationship between Extrinsic-Rules Keeping and Stage Two of Fowlers Theory of Faith Development (1981; 1991; 2004), of which the theory of Extrinsic-Rules Keeping was built. The Extrinsic-Rules Keeping factor identifies individuals that use their religion as a set of celestial rules , by which they are rewarded by God if they obey them and punished if they break them. In the development of the MRM additional items for the Extrinsic-Personal and Extrinsic-Social scales were included, as recommended, to increase scale reliabilities. A sample of 961 participants drawn from an online questionnaire were divided into two randomly split samples. Analyses using both samples indicated that the AUIES-12 was indeed a three-factor structure. However, as has been the case historically, only the Intrinsic scale held an acceptable reliability level. The MRM was supported through CFA as a four-factor model. The additional items added to the Extrinsic-Personal and Extrinsic-Social scales increased scale reliabilities to acceptable levels. Furthermore, the Extrinsic-Rules Keeping scale was found to have a positive relationship with Stage Two of Fowlers Theory of Faith Development, providing construct validity. The end result of this dissertation was the support for a 27 item measure of religious motivation that is psychometrically sound, theoretically supported, identifies four distinct types of religious motivation, and allows for reliable score and valid inferences from all scales

Bidirectional relations of religious orientation and depressive symptoms in adolescents : a short-term longitudinal study.

Religious orientation can be divided into intrinsic and extrinsic: intrinsically oriented individuals “live their religion,” whereas extrinsically oriented individuals practice religion mainly to gain external benefits. In adults, depression has been found to correlate negatively with intrinsic religious orientation and positively with extrinsic orientation. Studies of the relation between religiosity and depression typically have not been longitudinal, conducted with adolescents, controlled for the influence of other factors associated with depression (i.e., negative cognitions), or examined the reverse relation of depression predicting religious orientation. Our four-month longitudinal study of 273 ninth-grade students addressed these issues. Results showed that higher intrinsic religious orientation measured at baseline significantly predicted lower self-reported depressive symptoms four months later, controlling for initial level of depressive symptoms and cognitive style; in contrast, extrinsic orientation and the interaction between religious orientation and life events did not significantly predict later depressive symptoms. Self-reported depressive symptoms, however, did not predict either intrinsic or extrinsic religious orientation four months later. Factors contributing to different findings for adolescents versus adults in the relation between extrinsic religious orientation and depression are suggested