What Motivates Your Religiosity?: A Look at How the Strictness of a Religion Plays a Role in Religious Orientation
Mentor Information
Jay Michaels (Department of Psychology)
Description
This study sought to determine if people’s perception of strict religious moral codes and requirements influences religious orientation. Past research highlights how individual differences in religious commitment relate to religious strictness. Specifically, people who belong to more strict religious denominations tend to devote more time and commitment to their faith. Theoretically, this commitment should mean that religious strictness amplifies intrinsic and extrinsic religious motivation. As expected, religious strictness positively correlated with all forms of religious motivation. With a sample of N = 841, regression showed that religious strictness related to more intrinsic (b = .537), more extrinsic-personal (b = .593), and more extrinsic-social religious motivation (b = .392, all ps < .001). These findings are among the first to examine how religious strictness relates to religious orientation. Understanding how different factors influence religious motivation can provide insight into how different religious denominations relate to outcomes in health and wellbeing. This study was limited by its use of a correlational cross-sectional design, as such, causality cannot be established.
What Motivates Your Religiosity?: A Look at How the Strictness of a Religion Plays a Role in Religious Orientation
This study sought to determine if people’s perception of strict religious moral codes and requirements influences religious orientation. Past research highlights how individual differences in religious commitment relate to religious strictness. Specifically, people who belong to more strict religious denominations tend to devote more time and commitment to their faith. Theoretically, this commitment should mean that religious strictness amplifies intrinsic and extrinsic religious motivation. As expected, religious strictness positively correlated with all forms of religious motivation. With a sample of N = 841, regression showed that religious strictness related to more intrinsic (b = .537), more extrinsic-personal (b = .593), and more extrinsic-social religious motivation (b = .392, all ps < .001). These findings are among the first to examine how religious strictness relates to religious orientation. Understanding how different factors influence religious motivation can provide insight into how different religious denominations relate to outcomes in health and wellbeing. This study was limited by its use of a correlational cross-sectional design, as such, causality cannot be established.
