Religious Attitude Inventory

1. Abstract

The Religious Attitude Inventory (RAI) was developed by William E. Broen, Jr. in 1957 as a pioneering psychometric instrument designed to conceptualize and assess religion as a multidimensional construct. Moving away from unidimensional institutional metrics, Broen (1957a, 1957b) formulated the instrument to capture how individual theological orientations and subjective dispositions are constituted through relatively autonomous, differentially weighted latent factors. Originating from an initial pool of 133 statements processed through Stephenson’s Q-sort methodology with a criterion sample of diverse theological representatives, an inverse (Q-technique) factor analysis revealed two distinct primary axes accounting for religious attitude variance: Factor 1, termed Nearness of God (reflecting an experiential, supportive, and accessible divine presence), and Factor 2, designated Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism (reflecting orthodox dogmatism, human depravity, divine retributive justice, and behavioral puritanism versus ethical humanism). The consolidated scale comprises 58 items evaluated via a dichotomous forced-choice response format (Agree vs. Disagree). Psychometric investigations demonstrated that the inventory yields both continuous subscale indices and a compound index of overall religious intensity, as well as a differential emphasis index. While Factor 2 exhibited robust factor loadings and exceptional criterion validity across diverse denominational strata, Factor 1 demonstrated more modest factor saturations. Later psychometric refinements, notably by Gorsuch and Smith (1983), confirmed the enduring theoretical utility of Broen’s foundational dual-factor taxonomy. This paper offers a comprehensive academic review of the RAI, examining its historical rationale, psychometric architecture, construct validity, scoring methodologies, and methodological legacy within the quantitative psychology of religion.

2. Keywords

Religious Attitude Inventory, RAI, William E. Broen, Nearness of God, Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism, Q-sort methodology, multidimensional religiosity, psychometrics, religious psychology, orthodoxy, theological attitudes

3. Authors

The scale was conceived and empirically operationalized by William E. Broen, Jr., Ph.D. (1928–2007), an American clinical psychologist and psychometrician who served as Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Broen conducted his foundational research on religious attitudes during his doctoral and post-doctoral work associated with the University of Minnesota, subsequently producing prominent works on experimental psychopathology, schizophrenia, and behavioral assessment.

Key revisions and theoretical adaptations of the construct were subsequently published by Richard L. Gorsuch, Ph.D. (Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary) and Craig S. Smith (1983), who isolated stable marker items from the original inventory to assess divine attribution patterns across contemporary theological contexts.

4. Purpose

Prior to the late 1950s, empirical research addressing religious phenomena frequently suffered from an oversimplified conceptualization: religiosity was routinely operationalized as a unitary continuum ranging from total skepticism or atheism to profound orthodoxy or high church attendance. Such unidimensional constructs obscured critical qualitative variations in the psychological nature of faith. Broen (1957a) formulated the Religious Attitude Inventory to establish an empirical framework capable of capturing the differential weighting of diverse religious values, experiences, and cognitive doctrines within the individual personality.

The clinical and research applications of the RAI are multifaceted. In clinical assessment, the instrument helps clinicians identify dysfunctional cognitive-affective profiles linked to punitive religious frameworks. High scores on punitive fundamentalism paired with low scores on divine nearness have historically been correlated with guilt, neurotic distress, and rigid defense mechanisms, whereas high divine nearness typically correlates with positive coping, emotional resilience, and secure existential attachment. In academic and sociological research, the RAI affords investigators a psychometrically anchored device to map ideological polarities across secular and sectarian populations, track doctrinal evolution over time, and evaluate the interactive effects of religious frameworks on behavioral outcomes, attribution of personal responsibility, and coping mechanisms in the face of somatic and psychological adversity (Gorsuch & Smith, 1983).

The overarching theoretical rationale of the RAI resides in its capacity to disentangle institutional conformity from experiential closeness to the divine. By establishing orthogonal or weakly correlated dimensions of faith, the instrument permits individuals to be characterized not by an arbitrary aggregate score of ‘piety,’ but through a nuanced ideological profile that distinguishes between warm, immanent theism and rigid doctrinal dogmatism.

5. Psychological Construct

The Religious Attitude Inventory measures religious orientation as a multidimensional configuration defined by two core psychological dimensions, supplemented by overarching indices of general religiosity and thematic emphasis.

Factor 1: Nearness of God

This dimension reflects a subjective, affectively rich, and experiential engagement with a transcendent yet accessible deity. Individuals scoring high on this dimension report an intense consciousness of divine presence in daily living, reliance on divine guidance in decision-making, and an experiential certainty of the supernatural. The divine is perceived as an intimate companion, protector, and internal moral guide rather than an external judicial tyrant. Exemplary expressions include belief in the ongoing operational reality of divine miracles, direct prayer accessibility without clerical mediation, and profound experiential verification of divine reality. Conversely, low scores represent either an abstract deistic conception, where God is synonymous with impersonal natural laws, or a generalized skepticism regarding divine immanence.

Factor 2: Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism

This bipolar ideological axis reflects the degree to which an individual subscribes to strict theological dogmatism, scriptural literalism, retributive divine justice, and an uncompromising doctrine of human depravity. The fundamentalist pole asserts that humanity is inherently wicked, unclean, and eternally condemned absent substitutionary atonement; that biblical scriptures are inerrant and immune to human rational criticism; and that strict behavioral taboos (e.g., prohibition of secular entertainment, dancing, and Sabbath labor) are imperative for salvation. In contrast, the humanitarian pole downplays original sin, views biblical narratives as metaphorical or ethical parables, prioritizes the Golden Rule and love of neighbor over ritual obedience, and relies heavily on human reason, social welfare, and universal human benevolence.

Compound Psychometric Indices

In addition to the primary factor scores, the RAI yields two structural indices:

• General Religiosity Score: Computed as the aggregate endorsement (total ‘Agree’ responses) across the inventory, reflecting an individual’s broad theological involvement regardless of doctrinal preference.
• Differential Religious Emphasis: Derived as a difference score between the standardized endorsements of Factor 1 versus Factor 2, quantifying whether an individual’s orientation is primarily experiential-mystical or dogmatic-juridical.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Religious Attitude Inventory emerged during a transformative paradigm shift within personality assessment and the emerging field of social-cognitive psychology. Although Broen intentionally avoided adopting a single dogmatic theological stance, the inventory’s structural framework is grounded in Stephenson’s Q-methodology and the functionalist personality tradition championed by Gordon Allport.

Historically, the psychology of religion was divided between the psychodynamic conceptualization of religious belief as an infantile projection of parental figures (Sigmund Freud) and the humanistic, phenomenological investigation of direct mystical apprehension (William James). Broen operationalized these divergent traditions into measurable attitudinal variables. The Nearness of God factor corresponds closely to Jamesian “healthy-minded” experiential faith, wherein the personal consciousness of God provides subjective solace, joy, and emotional integration. Conversely, the Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism continuum mirrors the tension between institutional-authoritarian religiosity—characterized by rigid external sanctions, moralistic policing, and fear of retributive damnation—and autonomous, internalized ethical frameworks.

Broen’s approach relies on the psychometric assumption that religious ideologies are organized hierarchically. At the base of this hierarchy are specific doctrinal attitudes, which cohere into broader attitude clusters (factors), which ultimately define an individual’s cognitive-affective worldview. Methodologically, the scale bridged the gap between nomothetic categorization and idiographic assessment: by beginning with an idiographic sorting procedure (Q-sort) within selected archetypes and converting it into a standardized nomothetic rating scale, Broen preserved the individual’s pattern of internal ideological salience within a quantitative metric.

7. Validity

The construct, criterion, and discriminant validity of the RAI were initially established by Broen (1957a) through group-contrast validation strategies across distinct religious and secular populations. To evaluate whether the two factors discriminated meaningfully between divergent theological subcultures, Broen administered the inventory to a validation sample of N = 113 participants drawn from four distinct ideological orientations: conservative theological seminarians, moderate mainline Protestants, liberal theological students, and secular collegiate controls.

Independent t-tests confirmed that Factor 2 (Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism) exhibited exceptional criterion-related validity. Mean fundamentalism scores separated conservative seminarians from both liberal theological cohorts and secular students at highly significant thresholds (p < .001). Even after implementing rigorous Bonferroni corrections across all eight primary contrast tests, the discriminative power of the factor remained statistically robust. Conservative subjects consistently endorsed items affirming the literal reality of hell, human depravity, and biblical inerrancy, whereas liberal and secular participants systematically rejected them in favor of rationalistic and humanitarian items.

Factor 1 (Nearness of God) demonstrated convergent validity by isolating individuals reporting active personal devotions, mystical awareness, and subjective reliance on divine intervention across denominations. However, its discriminant capacity was partially attenuated because experiential immanence proved common across both conservative and moderate believers who otherwise differed radically on dogmatic orthodoxy. Further validity evidence was provided by Gorsuch and Smith (1983), who demonstrated that items drawn from the Nearness of God factor correlated selectively with positive divine attribution matrices, whereas fundamentalism items correlated with punitive and judgmental attributions following adverse life outcomes.

8. Reliability

Psychometric analyses of the original RAI revealed distinct reliability profiles across its two primary dimensions. In Broen’s original 1957 derivation, Factor 2 (Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism) demonstrated strong internal consistency, characterized by robust communalities and factor saturations. The majority of items loading on Factor 2 exhibited coefficients exceeding .50, reflecting high construct homogeneity.

Conversely, Factor 1 (Nearness of God) revealed psychometric limitations in its initial form. Of the 14 primary marker items assigned to Factor 1 in the initial factor extraction, 8 displayed factor loadings of .42 or below (Broen, 1957a). This lower saturation suggested greater error variance and the presence of multidimensional sub-facets (e.g., charismatic glossolalia items vs. gentle deistic guidance items). Although original split-half coefficients were adequate for group-level investigations, contemporary reliability indices such as Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega were not formally reported in the 1957 literature.

Subsequent psychometric investigations evaluating revised versions of the RAI dimensions (e.g., Gorsuch & Smith, 1983) reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeding .82 for the refined Nearness of God subscale and .88 for the modernized Fundamentalism subscale. Test-retest reliability across short administration intervals (2 to 4 weeks) demonstrated stability coefficients ranging from r = .78 to .85 across adult religious cohorts.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural derivation of the RAI represents a classic application of inverse factor analysis (Q-technique factor analysis). Broen initially hypothesized five distinct qualitative religious types: (a) believers who emphasize sin and divine judgment, (b) individuals who turn to religion to fill an internal existential void, (c) those focusing on moralistic and ethical behavior, (d) believers who center on divine love and glory, and (e) spirit-filled practitioners of charismatic phenomena (e.g., glossolalia).

To evaluate these theoretical categories, Broen assembled an initial pool of 133 statements reflecting divine nature and human-divine interactions. Twenty expert participants—comprising four representatives from each of the five hypothesized types, plus four moderate theological participants (Catholics and Lutherans)—served as the criterion sorting sample. Each subject executed a forced-choice Q-sort, organizing the 133 items across a 9-point quasi-normal distribution with fixed category allocations: 2, 7, 15, 26, 33, 26, 15, 7, and 2 items per pile.

Intercorrelations among the sort vectors of the 20 participants were calculated, forming a 20 × 20 matrix that was subjected to inverse principal factor analysis. Two primary factors emerged with an initial inter-factor correlation of r = .32:

• Rotation: Four factors were initially extracted and rotated to maximize rotational stability; this confirmed that two dominant orthogonal dimensions accounted for the overwhelming majority of common variance.
• Item Reduction: Subjects were stratified into high and low loading cohorts on each primary factor. Average Q-sort category placements were calculated for all 133 statements across these subgroups. Items exhibiting maximal mean differences between high- and low-loading groups and minimal distribution overlap were retained, yielding the final 58-item scale.
• Cross-Loading Items: Seven items (Items 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, and 58) demonstrated dual factorial complexity, loading significantly on both Nearness of God and Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism, and were designated as shared structural markers.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Type: Multidimensional Self-Report Attitudinal Inventory.
• Format: Paper-and-pencil or digital structured questionnaire.
• Item Count: 58 items.
• Response Scale: Dichotomous forced-choice format: A (Agree) or D (Disagree).
• Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
• Subscale Composition:
  • Factor 1: Nearness of God (24 unique items + 7 shared items = 31 total items).
    • Positively keyed (‘Agree’): Items 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 40, 43, 46, 48, 50.
    • Negatively keyed (‘Disagree’): Items 3, 7, 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, 31, 35.
  • Factor 2: Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism (27 unique items + 7 shared items = 34 total items).
    • Positively keyed (‘Agree’): Items 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, 30, 34, 38, 41, 44, 47, 49, 51.
    • Negatively keyed (‘Disagree’): Items 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 39, 42, 45.
  • Dual-Factor Items (Belonging to Both Factors):
    • Items 52, 54, 55: Scored Disagree for Factor 1; Scored Agree for Factor 2.
    • Item 58: Scored Agree for Factor 1; Scored Disagree for Factor 2.
    • Item 53: Scored Agree for both Factor 1 and Factor 2.
    • Items 56, 57: Scored Disagree for both Factor 1 and Factor 2.
• Scoring Protocols:
  • Original Broen Method: Simple summation of endorsed ‘Agree’ items for each factor, providing a measure of specific theological adherence.
  • Contemporary Method: Directional scoring wherein keyed responses (both Agree and Disagree) receive 1 point, and non-keyed responses receive 0 points, maximizing score variance.
  • Differential Religious Emphasis Score: Mean Factor 1 score minus Mean Factor 2 score.
  • General Religiosity Index: Total sum of all ‘Agree’ responses across all 58 items.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Religious Attitude Inventory was published by William E. Broen, Jr. in 1957 in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, with extended scoring protocols deposited simultaneously with the American Documentation Institute (ADI Document No. 5066, Photoduplication Service, Library of Congress). As an academic instrument published in 1957 without subsequent commercial copyright enforcement, the scale resides in the public domain for non-commercial scholarly and educational research purposes. Investigators utilizing the instrument are expected to cite Broen’s original 1957 publications and subsequent psychometric standardizations appropriately. No testing fees or commercial licensing restrictions apply to the administration of the 58 items.

12. References

Broen, W. E., Jr. (1957a). A factor-analytic study of religious attitudes. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 54(2), 176–179. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0044557

Broen, W. E., Jr. (1957b). Factor I key: Religious attitude inventory (Document No. 5066). American Documentation Institute, Auxiliary Publications Project, Photoduplication Service, Library of Congress.

Gorsuch, R. L., & Smith, C. S. (1983). Attributions of responsibility to God: An interaction of religious beliefs and outcomes. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 22(4), 340–352. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385771

Guertin, W. H., & Bailey, J. P., Jr. (1970). Introduction to modern factor analysis. Edwards Brothers.

Stevens, J. (1992). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

13. Items of the Scale