Religious Orientation Scale Overview

Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)

• Developed by Allport, the ROS aims to measure extrinsic and intrinsic religious orientations.
• Allport initially characterized "mature" religious sentiment as complex, dynamic, moral, comprehensive, integral, and heuristic.
• "Immature" religious sentiment encompasses the opposite characteristics.
• Later discussions by Allport focused on extrinsic and intrinsic orientations, with the distinction seeming implicit and not explicitly defined.
• Religious orientation is viewed as motivational, describing the role religion plays in an individual's life, ranging from instrumental to ultimate, peripheral to central, and servant to master depending on orientation.

Extrinsic Religious Orientation

• Extrinsic orientation is a utilitarian motivation.
• Religious behaviors and beliefs are employed to achieve mundane goals like comfort, social status, and approval.

Intrinsic Religious Orientation

• Intrinsic orientation arises from goals within the religious tradition.
• It is a non-mundane, self-denying motivation; religion is considered a "master motive."

ROS Subscales

• The ROS, Allport’s primary effort to operationalize extrinsic and intrinsic orientations, was preceded by earlier attempts.
• Wilson (1960) created a 15-item measure of extrinsic religious values, and Feagin (1964) developed 6-item scales for both extrinsic and intrinsic orientations.
• Items on the Extrinsic subscale reflect the peripheral role of religion, focusing on seeking solace and social approval.
• Intrinsic subscale items seem less conceptually focused, but reflect the fervency of commitment.

ROS Scoring

• Extrinsic and Intrinsic scales are separate.
• Scoring involves summing respective items, resulting in a range of 11-55 for Extrinsic and 9-45 for Intrinsic scores using a 5-point scale.
• A 9-point scale is also used by some researchers.
• Mean scores, not raw totals, are preferred for comparisons.
• Classifying individuals using median splits can affect comparability across diverse samples.
• A theoretically meaningful approach is to split samples based on the mid-point or neutral point of the scale.

ROS Revisions and Criticisms

• Revisions and replacements for the ROS have stemmed from empirical and conceptual-empirical critiques.
• Pure empirical critiques focus on psychometric weaknesses like lack of inverse Extrinsic/Intrinsic correlation, low inter-item correlations, or multidimensionality of certain scales.
• Conceptual-empirical critiques challenge the ROS's measurement of Allport's envisioned maturity.
• Batson's (1976) approach proposes more distinct scales to assess these distinctions.

Batson's Revised Model

• Batson proposed the Quest Scale to measure the desire to grapple with existential questions and religious doubts.
• The Internal and Doctrinal Orthodoxy scales measure motivation to believe and endorsement of specific religious doctrines, correlated with intrinsic orientation.
• The External scale assesses the influence of others on religious beliefs, which surprisingly, correlated with intrinsic orientation.
• Batson's model proposes three independent dimensions of religious orientation: a devout dimension, a utilitarian dimension, and a quest dimension.
• Batson's model addresses gaps of religious orientation as defined by Allport

ROS Cultural and Age Considerations

• The ROS is largely tied to a North American Protestant view of Christianity.
• Items referencing church and Bible may limit interpretability for non-Christian respondents.
• Modifications using less sectarian language are recommended.
• An age-universal version of the ROS caters to diverse adult/child populations.

ROS Sample, Means, and Distributions

• Allport and Ross (1967) data encompassed 309 participants from different denominations, but not representative of the population.
• Means of intrinsic and extrinsic scores were not reported for each subsample neither for the whole data set.
• Smaller groups and sects tend to report higher intrinsic, and lower extrinsic orientations than larger denominations due to their stringent membership requirements.
• Research shows higher intrinsic scores in conservative Protestant groups compared to others
• Internal consistency reliability for the intrinsic scale is adequate to excellent, while extrinsic reliability tends to be lower, attributed to broader manifestations of the extrinsic orientation.

ROS Validity

• The ROS validity is complicated by subtle shifts within Allport’s writings and by the inherent value-ladenness of religious orientation constructs.
• Allport and Ross implied intrinsic as "good" and extrinsic as "bad" religion regarding validity without supporting rationale.
• Many researchers implicitly judged extrinsic as "negative" and intrinsic as "positive", influencing how validity is judged.
• Intrinsic orientation should correlate positively with religious commitment and a sense of purpose, both are validated.
• Extrinsic orientation could be related to seeking social approval or a need for comfort, supported by negative correlations found with measures related to mental health and stress .

This quiz explores the concepts of extrinsic and intrinsic religious orientations as developed by Allport. It discusses the characteristics of mature versus immature religious sentiments and how these orientations motivate individuals in their religious behaviors and beliefs. Test your understanding of this important psychological framework.