Donahue JPSP 1985 Religiosidad Metanálisis

7/25/2019 Donahue JPSP 1985 Religiosidad Metanlisis

1/20

Journal

of Personality and

SocialPsychology

1985,

Vol.

48, No. 2,

400-419

Copyright

1985by the

American

Psychological Association, Inc.

0022-35I4/85/S00.75

IntrinsicandExtrinsic Religiousness: Reviewand Meta-Analysis

MichaelJ. Donahue

Brigham

Young

University

Themajorfindingsof thismeta-analyticreview

concerning intrinsic

andextrinsic

religiousnessarethese:(a)Samplesconsisting ofrespondentswithconservative

theological

orientationsseem

morelikelyto

display

a

negative correlation between

intrinsic and

extrinsic

religiousness

than

do

others,

(b) Extrinsic religiousness

tends to be

positively

correlated

with

negatively evaluated characteristics, and

uncorrelated with

measures

of religious belief and commitment, (c) Intrinsic

religiousness tends to beuncorrelated

with

negatively evaluated characteristics,

and positively

correlatedwithmeasures

of

religiousness,

(d) A

fourfold

typology

based

on median splits of the two

scales

is of

little

use when the dependent

variable is

religious

innature,but

with

various nonreligious variables produces

results that may

correspond

to findings of

curvilinearity

observed

with

other

measures

of

religiousness.

Recommendationsconcerningthe use of theintrinsic

and

extrinsicscales in

future

research are made. The article concludes

with

a

review

ofrecent conceptual

developments

byBatson

(1976)

and

Hood

(1978).

No approach

to

religiousness

has had

greater impact on the

empirical

psychology

ofreligion than Gordon W.Allport's

concepts

ofintrinsic (7)

and

extrinsic(E) religiousness

(Meadow & Kahoe, 1984).'Nearly 70 pub-

lished studies have used Allport's Religious

Orientation Scale (ROS), making it one of

the most frequently used measures of reli-

giousness.

Research concerning / andE has been

reviewed in three current

psychology-of-reli-

gion textbooks (Batson & Ventis, 1982;

Meadow &Kahoe, 1984;Paloutzian, 1983).

Although

thesereviewsare

useful,

they have

not closely examined

a

number

of

relevant

issues,

such

as the

I-E

correlation

and the

I-E interaction. In addition to addressing

these issues, in the present review I seek to

applythetechniquesof meta-analysis(Glass,

This article is a revision andexpansion of areview

that originally appeared

in the

author's

doctoral

disser-

tation, submitted

at

Purdue University.

It was

alsopre-

sented

at the

meeting

of the

American Psychological

Association, Anaheim,

California,

August 1983.

Thanks are due to Richard Gorsuch, Allen Bergin,

Richard

Williams,JosephRychlak,

Alice

Eagly,

Raymond

Paloutzian, Peter Benson,

Kay

Deaux.Richard Heslin,

HarieyBernbach, and an anonymous reviewer fortheir

commentsonearlier drafts.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael Don-

ahue, who is now at

Search Institute,

122

WestFranklin,

Suite

215, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404.

McGaw,

&Smith,1981;Hunter, Schmidt,&

Jackson, 1982)

toI-E

research

in an

attempt

to explain a number of seemingly inconsistent

fin ings

EarlyConceptual Development

Hunt

and

King (1971)

reviewed the

early

conceptual history of 7 and

E.

In brief,

Allport

distinguished between

two

types

of

religious sentiment: Intrinsic religiousness is

religion

as a meaning-endowing framework

in

terms

of

which

all of

life

isunderstood;it

is religion

as

proto-point (Rychlak, 1977).

Extrinsic religiousness,

in contrast, is the

religion of comfort and

social

convention, a

self-serving,

instrumental approach shaped to

suitoneself. Table

1 is a

summary

ofAllport's

writings on these

points.

2

7 and

E

were

probably best summed up by Allport and

Ross (1967) when they stated that "the

ex-

1

Throughout thisreview,thetermreligiosityisavoided.

The reason

is

etymological:

"Religiosity"

connotes

an

affected,

artificial, or

exaggerated religious interest; "re-

ligiousness" doesnotcarry that

conceptual

baggageand

isthereforemore appropriate in thepresent context.

2

Table 1 is similar to a table presented by

Hunt

and

King

(1971).

However, Hunt

and

King examined

/and

Ein a predominantlysociologicallight and omitted such

characteristics as maturity

from

their analysis. They also

omitted Allport's (1961, 1963, 1966a)references,which

stressthe

mental health

aspectsof theconcepts.


2/20

I-E META-ANALYSIS

401

Table

1

Concepts Associated with Intrinsic and Extrinsic

Religiousness

in Allport's Writings

Intrinsic

Extrinsic

Relatesto all of life

(a,

b, c, d, f, g, h, j)

Unprejudiced;tolerance

(a,

b, c, h, i)

Mature(a, d)

Integrative;

unifying;

meaning-endowing

(a, c, d, f, g, h, i)

Regularchurchattendance

(e, g, h)

Makes

for

mental

health

f, g)

Compartmentalized

(a, c, d, h)

Prejudiced;exclusionary

(a,

b,

c, d, e, h)

Immature;dependent;

comfort;

security

(a, b, d, f,g,

h,

i, j)

Instrumental; utilitarian;

self-serving

(a, c, d, e,

f,g,h,i,j)

Irregular church

attendance(e,g,h, i)

Defense

orescape

mechanism(d, f, g)

Note.

Lettersinparentheses

refer

to thefollowing

refer-

ences:

(a)Allport (1950), (b)

AUport (1954),

(c) Allport

(1959), (d)Allport

(1961),

(e)Allport

(1962),

(f)Allport

(1963),(g) Allport

(1964),

(h)Allport

(1966a),

(i)Allport

(1966b),

(j) Allport &

Ross

(1967).

trinsicallymotivated person uses

his

religion,

whereas

the

intrinsically motivated lives

his

religion"(p.434).

As the descriptions in Table 1 indicate,

these

twotypesofreligiousness were originally

considered to be ends of a bipolar continuum.

But

from the

very

beginningof theempirical

research, doubtwascaston theappropriate-

ness ofcharacterizing/ and

E

in thisway.

Feagin (1964) reported a

factor

analysisin

which items

from

/ and

E

scales loadedon

separate,

orthogonal factors.Allport(1966b)

himself

began

to

take note

of a

group

of

"muddleheads

who

refuse

to

conform

to our

neat religious

logic"

(p. 6). These individuals

agreed with items on both scales despite

Allport's attempt to construct the scales to

represent polar opposites.

As a result ofthese findings,Allportex-

panded hisoriginalbipolarapproach intoa

fourfold typology. Those who agreed with

items

on the /scaleanddisagreedwithitems

on the E scale he called intrinsics. Those

who

disagreed with

/

items

and

agreed

with

Eitemshecalledextrinsics.Thosewhoagreed

with

items

on

both scales

he

called

indiscrim-

inately proreligious

(henceforth

indiscrimi-

nate)andthosewhodisagreed with itemson

both

scales

he

called

indiscriminately

antire-

ligious

(henceforth

nonreligious).

Although

AllportandRoss(1967)originally developed

a scoring procedurethatexcluded thenon-

religiouscategory

(on the

presumption that

therewould

be a no nonreligious respondents

in their

sample

of

church members),

Hood

(1970) proposed classifying the

four

groups

on thebasisofmedian splits. This procedure

has since been

followed

by the majority of

researchers

using

the

typology.

EarlyConceptual Critiques

AsthedatesinTable 1indicate, thecon-

ceptsof

intrinsic

andextrinsic religiousness

underwenta

rather long development before

they

were

operationalized.

When empirical

studies addressingtheissues

of

/ and began

to bepublished, they were quickly followed

by

two articles that, on the basis of rather

meager evidence, offered a preliminary as-

sessment of the

concepts.

The first, by

Hunt

and

King(1971),con-

tendedthat

E

was auseful concept, butthat

7

was not

because

it was too

"metaphysical"

(p.354).Theotherreview,byDittes (1971),

which appeared in the same issue of the

Journal

for the Scientific Study of

Religion

(JSSR), seems

to have

been based primarily

onpurist, logical positivist viewsofscience

and ad hominems against Allport. Dittes

statedthat

theintrinsic-extrinsic

concept

in-

cluded a "heavy contraband load of value

judgment that simply

will

not be

sloughed

off" (p.

375). Dittes accused

AUportof"ne-

glectingthepurityofconceptualization" (p.

380)

and

accused

I-E

researchers

of

"persis-

tently neglect[ing] orresisting]" the devel-

opment

ofmultidimensional frameworks (p.

381).

The

latter

was

manifestly

not the

case,

becausein all three of theROSstudies up to

that time, Allport

and

Ross (1967), Feagin

(1964),andHood (1970)hadnoted that /

andE

were

separate dimensions.

Dittes (1971)also accused Allport

of

con-

ceptualagglutination: that

is,

creating

a new

concept out of a constellation of independent

concepts. This criticism

cannotbe

evaluated

at a purely conceptual level, because whether

a particular groupofconcepts does form a

syndrome

is an empirical issue. One should

be free to posit such syndromes, solongas

one is

willing

to

proceed

further and

test


3/20

402

MICHAEL J. DONAHUE

their

validity.

At the

time

of

Dittes' review,

there was not

enough empirical evidence

to

addresstheissue.

Since

the

publication

of

these

early

reviews,

a

considerable body

ofl-E

research

has

been

produced. The purpose of this review is to

apply

those data

to the

followingquestions:

1.

Whatis therelation between/ and

E?

What factors influence the

correlation

be-

tween

them?

3

2.

What are the correlates of the two

constructs considered individually? What

types of

variables

do

each

of the two

con-

structs

form

relations with,

and what do these

relations

reveal concerning

the

nature

of /

and?

3.

What

is theutilityof theAllport-Hood

fourfold

typology? Does

it

increase predictive

power

over

the two

unipolar constructs?

4.

Have later conceptual developments

shedanyfurther lighton / andE?

AnEmpiricalAssessment

Method

LiteratureSearch

Thedata to be presented hereare based on areview

oftheliterature publishedinEnglishto the end of 1982.

It

was conducted by means of (a) examining all volumes

of

JSSR,

the

Review of Religious Research,

and the

Journal of Psychology and Theology for

relevant

articles;

(b) examining

all the

articles that

the

Social Science

Citation Index listed as referencing Allport and Ross

(1967)or

Feagin

(1964);and (c) the"ancestry"method:

examining the reference lists of the articles

obtained

by

the twoprevious

methods.

The general form of this review is that of a

meta-

analysis (Glass etal.,1981;Hunteretal., 1982),inwhich

I

seek

to

combine

the

results

of

independent studies

in

order to make empirical determinations of the issues

generally

addressed by literature reviews. In order to

facilitatecombining

the

results

of

these studies, consid-

eration

was

givenonly

to

studies

inwhich / andE

were

defined

intermsofeither Allportand

Ross's(1967)

ROS,

or Feagin's (1964) Intrinsic-Extrinsic

(l/E)

Religiosity

measure, which consistsalmostexclusively

of a

subset

of

theROS. Related

approaches,

suchasAllenand Spilka's

(1967)

"committed-consensual"

dimensions and alter-

native conceptualizations of intrinsic (Hoge, 1972) or

extrinsic (Wilson, 1960)religiousness,were

not

included.

Analyses

The

analyses

of

these

data

required

a

number

of

judgment calls

(McGrath,

Martin,

Kulka,

1982).The

first

involvedhow

to

calculatemean correlations across

studies. Although

Fisher's

rto z transformation comes

most

quickly

to mind, both Glass et al.

(1981)

and

Hunter

et al. (1982) contended that it may not be

appropriate. The procedureadopted and

reported

here

(consistent with the recommendations of Hunter et al.)

was

to

weight

the

untransformed

re bytheir

sample size,

sum

them, and divide by the sum of the sample sizes.

Weighted z

scores

were also computed, and though

always

greater,

neverdiffered by

more than

.03from the

means reported here.

Asecond issueinvolved

the

choice

of how to

calculate

or

estimate theproduct-moment correlation between /

and

E

when only contingency table

data

were

reported.

4

After

consultation with several sources (Carroll, 1961;

Glass et al., 1981; Guilford, 1965; Nunnally, 1976;

Taylor, 1972),

both

tetrachoric

and phi

coefficients

were

calculated.

In

light

of

comments

by

Guilford (1965,

p.

300), tetrachoric correlations were computed only on

samples of 200 or more, and,whenused in computations,

were

weightedby 45% oftheir sample size. Examination

of the marginal probabilities for the contingency

tables

indicated that the corrections for tetrachoric correlations

recommended

by

Jenkins (1955;

see

also Fishman,

1956)

were

not required. When phi coefficients were used in

calculations, theywereweighted

by

their

sample

size.

In

no casedid themean correlations involvingphi coefficients

differ

bymore than.04

from

those involving tetrachorics.

Results

Relations

Between

I

and

E

One

way to

address

the

relation

between

/

andEis

throughfactoranalysis

of the

items

of

the

subscales.

All five

published reports

of

such

factor analyses, Carey (1974), Elifson

(1976), Feagin (1964), Patrick (1979), and

Vincenzo,

Hendrick,

and

Murray(1976),

re-

port similar

findings:

Items from

the two

subscales

tend

to

load

on two

separate,

or-

thogonal

factorswith few, ifany, cross-load-

ings.

(See also Batson & Ventis, 1982,

5

in

which

/ andE

tend

to

load

on

separate,

orthogonal factors.)

3

Because of the bipolar emphasis inAllport'sconcep-

tualization,

/ wasoriginallyreverse-scored,sothatagree-

ment

with

the items resulted in a low

scale

score.For

easeofconsideration, thesignsof allcorrelations reported

here have been adjusted

so

that

a

higher

score indicates

agreement forboth scales.

"In one case (Joe, McGee, & Dazey, 1977), exact

reconstruction of the contingency

table

was

based

on

reported degrees

of

freedom

for

Is

inwhichthefour

cells

were

compared.

In two other

cases

(Alker & Gawin,

1978; Dodrill, Bean, & Bostrom, 1973), information

allowed reconstruction

of

tablesconsistentwith

the

data.

'Batson

and Ventis

(1982)

presented

1-E

data

that

was based on a pooling of several studies. Because this

included otherwise unpublished data,

the

pooled

data,

rather than the individualstudies, have been usedhere.


4/20

l-E

META-ANALYSIS

4

Anotherway toaddressthe natureof the

relationbetween / andEis to examinethe

reportedcorrelations between them.InTable

2 therelevant data arepresented, arranged

from

the

most

negative

correlation

to the

mostpositive.The mean correlation across

the 34 samples reported here is -.06. This

mean,

however,

isstronglyinfluencedbyfour

studies inwhicheitherthe Feagin I/E scale

or factor-analytically refined versionsof the

ROS

were

used; three of these studies had

ratherlargesamplesizes.

For

ease

of

discus-

Table

2

Intrinsic-Extrinsic Correlations for

Various

Samples

Source

Sample

Dodrill

etal.,

1973

Bolt,1977

Strickland &

Shaffer,

1971

Shoemaker&Bolt, 1977

Spilka, 1977

Batson,1976

Paloutzian

etal., 1978

Kahoe,

1974a

Alker&Gawin, 1978

Baker

&

Gorsuch, 1982

Hood,

1971

Stewin&Anderson, 1974

McConahay

&

Hough, 1973

Kahoe

& Dunn, 1975

Allport&Ross,1967

Minion& Spilka, 1976

Thompson,

1974

Spilka, Stout, Minton,

&

Sizemore, 1977

Spilka

etal.,

1968

Batson & Ventis, 1982

Paloutzianetal.,1978

Thompson,

1974

Tate&Miller,

1971

Hood,

1971

Thompson, 1974

Hoge&Carroll, 1973

Elifson, 1976

Hood,

1978

Hoge&Carroll, 1973

Joeetal.,

1977

Elifson,

1976

Patrick, 1979

Hood,1970

Stewin, 1976

Hunt

&

King,

1971

Mean r

Mean

r for ROS

studies

-.58

-.57

-.54

-.45

-.41

-.41

-.40

-.37

-.33"

-.32

-.31""

-.29

-.24

-.22

-.21

-.19

-.18"

-.16

-.16

-.14

-.13

-.11

-.11"

-.08

-.08

-.04-

-.01

.00

.01

At

.06

b

.09*

.l l

f

.18

.21

,24

f

-.06

-.20

evangelical

Protestant

students

conservative

Protestants

college students

conservativeProtestant students

'"affiliated

and

active

Christians"

Princeton Seminary students

adultSunday school and

nonacademic

college

staff

religiously

conservative students

"religiously active" church members, many

denominations

"religiouswilderness camping organization"

Baptist psychology students

eleventh-grade

students

Protestant graduate seminarians

Catholics, Methodists,

and

Baptists

manydenominations

Protestant church members

Catholic mothers

respondents

personally involved in religion

college

students

"undergraduates with

at

least

a

moderate

interest

in

religion"

psychologystudents

Catholic fathers

Methodist laityandclergy

Baptist students

Catholic adolescents

Methodist andPresbyterians, Southern

sample

Southern Baptist women

psychology

students

Methodistsand

Presbyterians,

Northern

sample

psychology

students

Southern Baptist men

Buddhists, Baptists, and Congregationalists

psychlogy students

eleventh-grade students

four

denominations

N

Total

ROSN

255

62

24

51

106

67

177

333

101

52

83

107

159

70

309

67

532

167

146

258

84

532

175

83

532

343

452

147

51 5

167

562

91

89

100

1356

8271

4952

Note.

Allstudies used AllportROSexceptas

noted:Tetrachoric

correlation.

b

Becauseofsample size, onlyphi

coefficient

calculated.

c

Not included in the calculation of the mean; same sample as.08correlation

below.

d

Used

Feagin

//".

e

Correlations

basedon

stratified sample weighted

to

increase

representativeness.

f

Scalesrefined

through

factoranalysis.

I-E

correlation reported

inHunt&

King,

1971;

sample

and

methodology

reportedin

King

&

Hunt,

1972.


5/20

4 4

MICHAEL

J. DONAHUE

sion,only the 28 ROS correlations are con-

sidered initially and the remaining studies

later.

Across

the ROS

studies,

the

mean corre-

lation

is

.20,

which

is

interesting because

of itssimilarityto the .21originallyreported

by

Allport

and

Ross (1967).

But

more

im-

portant

is the

considerable range

of the

cor-

relations across these studies: from .58 to

.24. Is this variation due to theoperationof

some moderator variable,

or is it

simply

sampling

variance? Hunter et al. (1982) pre-

sented equations to address this question.

Applying

those equations to the ROScorre-

lations

in

Table

2, I

found

thatthecorrected

(nonsampling)

standard

deviation

for

these

datawas .15.

The next question is, What moderator

variable

is involved? One possibility suggests

itself on

examination

of the

third column

in

Table2: thenatureof the samples. The four

studiesdesribedby the researchers as involv-

ing evangelical or conservative religionists

have a

mean

of .44,

which

is significantly

(p

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Donahue JPSP 1985 Religiosidad Metanálisis