Constantin Klein

The Religious Schema Scale: Construction and Initial Validation of a Quantitative Measure for Religious Styles

This article presents the Religious Schema Scale (RSS). Its conceptual background is the model of religious styles. After a conceptual discussion of the relation between religious styles and religious schemata, the steps of scale construction are reported. Based on 822 responses from research participants in the United States and Germany to a preliminary 78-item version, we used construct-oriented iterative and factor-analytic procedures for reducing the RSS to a 15-item version that consists of three 5-item subscales with acceptable reliabilities. Confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the RSS has a robust 3-factor structure, which is cross-culturally valid in both the United States and Germany. We report correlations of the RSS with the Big Five, Psychological Well-Being, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. We also present predictive characteristics of the RSS in regard to Fowlers stages of faith. Finally, we report results on the incremental validity of the RSS.

The Semantics of ‘Spirituality’ and Related Self-Identifications: A Comparative Study in Germany and the USA

Culturally different connotations of basic concepts challenge the comparative study of religion. Do persons in Germany or in the United States refer to the same concepts when talking about ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’? Does it make a difference how they identify themselves? The Bielefeld-Chattanooga Cross-Cultural Study on ‘Spirituality’ includes a semantic differential approach for the comparison of self-identified “neither religious nor spiritual”, “religious”, and “spiritual” persons regarding semantic attributes attached to the concepts ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in each research context. Results show that ‘spirituality’ is used as a broader concept than ‘religion’. Regarding religion, semantics attributed by self-identified religious persons differ significantly from those of the spiritual persons. The ‘spiritual’ and the ‘religious’ groups agree on semantics attributed to spirituality but differ from the ‘neither spiritual nor religious’ group. Qualifications of differences and agreements become visible from the comparison between the United States and Germany. It is argued for the semantically sensitive study of culturally situated ‘spiritualities’.

Religious Styles Predict Interreligious Prejudice: A Study of German Adolescents with the Religious Schema Scale

Based on a sample of 340 German adolescents age 12 to 25, this article presents an analysis of the effects of religion on two instances of interreligious prejudice: anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic prejudice. Reflecting the emergent interest in implementing a perspective of religious maturity and religious development into research on religion and prejudice, the present study has included the Religious Schema Scale (RSS) which, with its three subscales, Truth of Texts & Teachings (ttt), Fairness, Tolerance & Rational Choice (ftr), and Xenosophia/Interreligious Dialog (xenos), differentiates religious styles. Regression analyses indicate the superior explanatory power of the RSS in comparison to other measures of religiosity. The RSS subscale ttt relates to and predicts anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic prejudice, whereas ftr and xenos relate to and predict disagreement with interreligious prejudice. Results of an analysis of variance using high agreement on ttt, ftr, and xenos for group construction indicate a decrease in interreligious prejudice in relation to religious development.

“Spirituality” and Mysticism

This chapter explores the relationship between the self-rating as “spiritual” and mysticism as measured by Hood’s Mysticism Scale. The introduction provides an overview of recent attempts to measure “spirituality” psychometrically, of the theoretical and empirical approaches to mysticism and already empirically observed relations between mysticism and “spirituality.” Many scales trying to operationalize “spirituality” lack a solid conceptual background and convincing empirical validity. Citing the work of Stace and James , Hood constructed a scale that provides detailed and measurable descriptions of mystical experiences , the Mysticism Scale. Since the Mysticism Scale measures varieties of personal experiences of unity with some kind of transcendence, it proves to be an excellent measure for what many people today call “spirituality.” This can be shown empirically by utilizing the three factor solution of the M-Scale , identified as introvertive, extrovertive, and interpretive mysticism, in structural equation models exploring the relationships between mysticism and self-rated “spirituality” as well as self-rated “religion.” This chapter concludes by arguing that “spirituality” may be the product of experiences that can be described in terms of mysticism.

Investigating “Spirituality”: Between Survey Data and the Study of Biographies

“Spirituality” has become a rather popular way of self-describing one’s world view and practice in relation to the ultimate. While for many “spirituality” is more or less identical with “religion,” surveys document that a growing number of people contrast “spirituality” and “religion,” self-identifying as “spiritual, but not religious” or as “more spiritual than religious.” These are indications of changes in the religious field. This chapter aims at locating the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality” in the context of results from recent large-scale survey research (General Social Survey; Allgemeine Bevolkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaft; Religion Monitor). Survey results on “spirituality” will be presented to contextualize analyses that are presented in later chapters of this volume—and to profile our research design and its aims. Contextualization however also means to introduce the research design of our study—which is not another survey, but rather the attempt to answer questions that surveys leave open. Most urgent desiderata in the study of “spirituality” regard the semantics, psychology and biographical significance of spirituality. Our study has thus employed a variety of methods: quantitative self-report data, free entries in the questionnaire, semantic differentials, an experimental approach, and last but not least a large amount of personal interviews. This chapter ends with an outline of the combination and triangulation of the variety of methods and sorts of data.

Is “Spirituality” Nothing but “Religion”? An Indirect Measurement Approach

While people might distinguish strictly between “spirituality” and “religion” on the explicit level of cognition, it is possible that such differences disappear on the implicit level. Implicit Association Tests (IAT s) provide a reliable and valid indirect procedure to measure implicit cognition. However, IAT s comparing “spirituality” and “religion” have not been used often in research yet. Earlier studies have tried to contrast both concepts either directly in one IAT or have used both concepts as a single category. Thus, in their operationalization they did not take the broadness, vagueness, and partial overlap of both terms into account satisfyingly. For a more valid comparison, in the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on “Spirituality,” both “spirituality” and “religion” have been assessed by using the same stimuli and have been contrasted with “atheism ” as a third concept. The results based on a subsample of 104 participants (USA: n = 67, Germany: n = 37) show that the task difficulties were reasonable and that both IAT s proved to be reliable. The general IAT effect s were .33 (USA) and .36 (Germany) for “spirituality” and .26 (USA) and .22 (Germany) for “religion,” indicating a preference for both “spirituality” and “religion” when contrasted with “atheism .” The effect sizes differ in parts significantly between four groups of explicit “spiritual/religious” self-identification in both countries. Explicit “spiritual”/“religious” self-ratings correlate highly significant with the IAT effect s for “spirituality” and “religion.” Although, in general, the IAT scores are also very highly correlated, comparison between the four subgroups revealed that explicit self-rating and implicit attitude towards “spirituality” differ significantly among those who distinguish between their “spirituality” and “religion” on the explicit level.

Personality Dimensions and Versions of “Spirituality”

This chapter presents results about personality and self-identified “spirituality” from the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality.” The data yield insights in commonalities and differences not only between the USA and Germany, but between emerging new forms of religion and between different versions of “spirituality,” such as the “spirituality” opposed to religion, or the “spirituality” of self-identified “atheist s” and “non-theists.” How are such different versions of “spirituality” reflected in the personality of our respondents? This is the question this chapter deals with on the basis of the results with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Results indicate that, compared to the normative values for the USA and Germany, the “more spiritual than religious,” but also the “neither religious nor spiritual” respondents in both countries score considerably higher on openness to experience . Further, there is little evidence in our data that self-identified “spirituality” could be explained by openness to experience or other personality factors. Finally, as Analyses of Variance of the Big Five personality dimensions in the “spiritual”/“religious”/“atheist ” self-identifying groups (our focus groups ) demonstrate, openness to experience is especially suitable for mapping the varieties of “spirituality” in our data.

Design, Methods, and Sample Characteristics of the Bielefeld-Based Cross-Cultural Study of “Spirituality”

The Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality” aims at an in-depth understanding of what people call “spirituality.” For this aim, a multi-method design has been applied. Self-report instruments such as psychometric scales were used with a large sample in Germany and the USA. Our sampling procedure, aiming at capturing the varieties of being “spiritual,” resulted in a sample of 1113 participants in the USA and 773 in Germany. This chapter introduces the instruments which were compiled for our questionnaire, the Faith Development Interview , and the Implicit Association Task which we used with a selected smaller sample. The chapter also describes the construction of “focus groups ,” groups defined according to participants’ self-identification as “spiritual,” as “religious” or as “atheist /non-theist.” These focus groups have been used to structure the sample with respect to positions in the religious field . They were also used for the selection of participants for personal interviews, the Faith Development Interview (FDI), and an experiment, the Implicit Association Test (IAT ). The characterization of the focus groups concludes the chapter.

Dimensions of “Spirituality”: The Semantics of Subjective Definitions

As part of the semantic analyses in the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality,” this chapter presents the analysis of 1039 English and 740 German subjective free-text-entry definitions of “spirituality” in response to the question: “How would you define the term ‘spirituality’?” The entire corpus of 1779 cases was rated using 44 categories which have been inductively developed from the material, leaning on Content analysis, Ethnosemantics and Grounded Theory methodology, and validated inter-subjectively in group sessions. Besides testing frequency distributions with the χ2-Test, Principal Component Analyses were performed for dimension reduction, from which we regard the solution with 10 components explaining 42.11 % of the variance as optimal. Thus 10 semantic dimensions of “spirituality” emerge from this analysis. Results from a second-order PCA suggest three components of the semantics of “spirituality”: mystical vs. humanistic transcending, theistic versusnon-theistictranscendence, and individual “lived” religion versus dogmatism. Thus this chapter demonstrates that a wide range as well as clear differences in understanding “spirituality” emerge when analysed in a decisively idiographic approach.

Sind Frauen tatsächlich grundsätzlich religiöser als Männer? Internationale und interreligiöse Befunde auf Basis des Religionsmonitors 2008

Einer der einflussreichsten Religionssoziologen der vergangenen Dekaden, Rodney Stark, fasste die Forschungsbefunde zur Religiositat von Frauen und Mannern und zu Geschlechtsunterschieden in der Religiositat vor wenigen Jahren wie folgt zusammen: „The fact is that women were and are more religious than men in all known eras and religions and in all contemporary societies.“ (Stark 2008: 8). Die These, dass Frauen grundsatzlich (und immer schon) religioser als Manner seien, findet sich auch in zahlreichen religionssoziologischen und -psychologischen Lehrbuchern (z.B. Argyle/Beit-Hallahmi, 1975, Batson/Schoenrade/Ventis 1993, Furseth/Repstad 2006, Hood/Hill/Spilka 2009, Trzebiatowska/Bruce, 2012) und Uberblicksartikeln (z.B. Collett/Lizardo 2009, Francis 1997, Miller/Hoffmann 1995, Stark 2002), wiewohl die Begrundungen, die dafur von den jeweiligen AutorInnen gegeben werden, im einzelnen variieren. Mittlerweile existiert ein ganzes Bundel unterschiedlicher Theorien, die versuchen, den vermeintlich universellen Geschlechtsunterschied in der Religiositat zu erklaren (vgl. Francis 1997, Trzebiatowska/Bruce, 2012).