Religious Fundamentalism Scale

1. Abstract

The Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RFS), developed by sociologists James G. Martin and Frank R. Westie in 1959, is a classic 9-item psychometric instrument originally designed to measure doctrinaire, conservative, and supernaturalist religious belief orientations within the context of intergroup tolerance and prejudice research. Embedded within early post-World War II investigations into The Authoritarian Personality, the scale was constructed to capture adherence to traditional Christian dogma, biblical inerrancy, and divine supernatural intervention. Respondents evaluate nine assertions utilizing a 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from Strongly Agree (SA) to Strongly Disagree (SD), with four items reverse-scored to attenuate acquiescence response bias. While designated as a measure of religious fundamentalism, subsequent psychometric evaluations by prominent social scientists (e.g., Robinson & Shaver, 1973; Hill, 1995) have highlighted that the instrument functions predominantly as an operationalization of orthodox, traditionalist Christian theological doctrine rather than fundamentalism as a multifaceted socio-behavioral construct. Specifically, six of its nine items directly reflect propositions derived from classical credal formulations such as the Apostles’ Creed. Psychometrically, the initial standardization relied on an urban sample of 100 Caucasian adults stratified by racial tolerance indices. Although initial empirical validations demonstrated significant mean score differentiations across tolerant and prejudiced cohorts, subsequent distributional reanalyses demonstrated substantial variance heterogeneity and skewed distributions, necessitating cautious contemporary deployment. Nonetheless, the instrument remains a seminal historical milestone in the psychology of religion, serving as an important baseline for subsequent multidimensional fundamentalism and religious orthodoxy inventories across clinical, cross-cultural, and social psychological domains.

2. Keywords

Religious Fundamentalism Scale, Christian orthodoxy, religious conservatism, authoritarianism, Martin and Westie, prejudice, dogma, supernaturalism, psychometrics, scale validation, Apostles’ Creed, religious attitudes

3. Authors

The Religious Fundamentalism Scale was designed and operationalized by:

• James G. Martin, Ph.D.: Sociologist and behavioral scientist associated with Northern Illinois University and Indiana University during the mid-20th century, specializing in intergroup relations, social stratification, and ethnic prejudice.
• Frank R. Westie, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Indiana University Bloomington, widely recognized for his foundational methodological contributions to the measurement of ethnic, racial, and social distance attitudes, notably developing the Summated Differences Scales.

Inquiries regarding the historical derivation and archival records of the instrument are generally directed through the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, which cataloged the instrument in historical measurement anthologies (e.g., Robinson & Shaver, 1973).

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Religious Fundamentalism Scale was to operationalize and quantitatively assess adherence to a doctrinaire, supernaturalistic, and theological conservative worldview within sociopsychological research. Formulated during an era characterized by intense empirical scrutiny of the ideological and personality antecedents of intergroup animus, the scale was created to test hypotheses concerning how conservative theological beliefs interact with generalized social tolerance and racial prejudice.

In their landmark 1959 investigation published in the American Sociological Review, Martin and Westie sought to identify the personality configurations differentiating “tolerant” from “prejudiced” individuals residing in urban residential blocks. Drawing upon the conceptual paradigms popularized by Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford in The Authoritarian Personality (1950), the authors conceptualized fundamentalist religious orientation as a potential cognitive correlate of rigid social categorizations, ethnocentrism, and conventionalism. The scale was purposefully engineered as a brief, direct inventory capable of determining whether adherence to traditional, literal theological dogmas co-occurred with authoritarian psychological profiles.

Beyond its initial sociological implementation, the scale acquired significant relevance across subsequent decades as researchers investigated diverse clinical and personality correlates. Psychologists utilized the instrument to examine relations between doctrinal adherence, psychological well-being, learned optimism, coping strategies, and moral rigidity (e.g., Sethi & Seligman, 1993). In clinical and counseling psychology, instruments measuring traditional religious orthodoxy provide insight into how rigid supernatural beliefs might moderate psychological distress, existential anxiety, guilt, or interpersonal conflict related to lifestyle discrepancies and minority stressors (Leitner & Cado, 1982).

Furthermore, in applied social and political psychology, the RFS established an empirical pathway to distinguish institutional religious involvement from ideological rigidity. While individuals may affiliate with mainline or evangelical denominations, the scale isolates cognitive assent to literal scriptural interpretations, bodily resurrection, divine judgment, and Christological divinity, allowing investigators to parse whether theological content per se or institutional community involvement accounts for variance in social attitudes, nationalism, and tolerance of ambiguity.

5. Psychological Construct

The underlying construct targeted by Martin and Westie was explicitly described as “the fundamentalistic, doctrinaire, and conservative outlook,” characterized predominantly by an emphasis on “dogma and supernaturalism” (Martin & Westie, 1959, p. 525). However, comprehensive theoretical analyses of the scale’s items reveal an intricate psychometric architecture that bridges three distinct, though interrelated, conceptual facets: theological orthodoxy, supernaturalism, and sociomoral moralism.

Theological Orthodoxy and Biblical Literalism

A central pillar of the construct is theological orthodoxy rooted in classical Christian doctrines. Six of the instrument’s nine items are direct reflections of orthodox tenets articulated in early ecumenical standards, specifically the Apostles’ Creed. This dimension taps cognitive assent to propositions regarding the inspiration of sacred scripture (“The Bible is the inspired word of God”), the ontological divinity of Jesus of Nazareth (“Christ is a divine being, the Son of God”), and the literal eschatological return of Christ (“Someday Christ will return”). In psychometric parlance, this represents a core epistemic adherence to historic theological realism, where scriptural narratives are interpreted as literal, factual history rather than symbolic, metaphorical, or allegorical moral literature.

Supernaturalism versus Rational Secularism

The second sub-facet assesses the acceptance of metaphysical transcendency over naturalistic or secular explanations. By incorporating reverse-scored items that frame classical religious dogmas as “superstition,” “mythical,” or human inventions, the construct captures an individual’s resistance to secular demythologization. For instance, endorsing that “The religious idea of heaven is not much more than superstition” or that “The idea of life after death is simply a myth” indicates an empirical, naturalistic orientation. Conversely, repudiating such claims reflects an active supernaturalist cognitive framework that accepts non-empirical, transcendental realities, bodily resurrection, and direct divine interventions in temporal reality (e.g., “The stories in the Bible about Christ healing sick and lame persons by His touch are fictitious and mythical”).

Sociomoral Moralism and Moral Restraint

The third dimension—manifested singularly within item 8—diverges from purely doctrinal or metaphysical beliefs by evaluating an instrumental socio-attitudinal belief: “If more of the people in this country would turn to Christ we would have a lot less crime and corruption.” This item taps the construct of moral conventionalism and societal regeneration via universal theological conversion. It measures an individual’s conviction that structural, social, and legal stability is fundamentally contingent upon collective doctrinal allegiance to Christianity, mirroring broader authoritarian traits such as conventionalism and the desire for external moral constraint.

Importantly, as noted by critical psychometric commentators (Robinson & Shaver, 1973; Hill, 1995; Ammerman, 1982), the construct measured by this scale represents a circumscribed slice of the modern construct of fundamentalism. Contemporary psychological theory distinguishes fundamentalism—defined by Altemeyer and Hunsberger as the belief in an absolute, inerrant, uniquely privileged truth that must be vigorously defended against oppositional forces—from mere religious orthodoxy. Because the Martin-Westie scale focuses nearly exclusively on doctrinal propositions rather than militancy, in-group exclusivity, closed-mindedness, or moral intolerance, it primarily indexes orthodox Christian belief content rather than structural fundamentalist processing.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework informing the Religious Fundamentalism Scale is situated at the intersection of mid-century sociological theories of intergroup prejudice and the Freudo-Marxian psychodynamic synthesis popularized by the Frankfurt School. Martin and Westie formulated their research within the foundational paradigm established by Theodor Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sanford in The Authoritarian Personality (1950).

Adorno and colleagues proposed that prejudice is not merely an isolated set of learned cultural attitudes, but an external manifestation of an underlying, deeply integrated personality structure—termed the authoritarian personality. Key features of this syndrome include rigid adherence to conventional middle-class values, submissive attitudes toward internalized moral authorities, aggressive impulses directed against out-groups, a pervasive intolerance of ambiguity, and a penchant for superstitious and stereotyped thinking. Within this conceptual architecture, religious fundamentalism was hypothesized to function as a psychological defense mechanism. For an individual characterized by ego weakness and high anxiety regarding ambiguity, an immutable, authoritarian religious structure provides categorical cognitive certainty, clear boundaries between moral in-groups and out-groups, and an unquestionable authority figure capable of alleviating existential guilt and fear.

Martin and Westie (1959) sought to extend this theoretical structure to understand the “tolerant personality.” Hypothesizing that intergroup tolerance represents an active personality configuration distinct from mere non-prejudice, they postulated that high levels of tolerance would correlate with low religious fundamentalism, minimal authoritarianism, high tolerance of cognitive ambiguity, and low social nationalism. They theorized that individuals who adhere strictly to dogmatic, supernaturalist worldviews would naturally exhibit higher levels of ethnocentric bias, as the psychological mechanisms required to sustain absolute credal orthodoxy—namely, binary categorical thinking, reliance on tradition, and cognitive closure—predispose the actor toward rigid out-group rejection.

Later psychometric revisions by Gordon Allport (1966) regarding intrinsic and extrinsic religion, as well as subsequent formulations of fundamentalism by Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger (1992, 2004), further refined this framework. Modern fundamentalism theory clarifies that belief content (orthodoxy) must be theoretically decoupled from belief structure (fundamentalism). While Martin and Westie’s operationalization conflated orthodox credal content with fundamentalism, their work was foundational in demonstrating how doctrinal rigidity could be quantified and positioned alongside personality variables to predict sociopolitical behavior.

7. Validity

The initial validity evaluations conducted by Martin and Westie (1959) yielded provocative yet methodologically debated results. To examine construct and criterion-related validity, the authors administered the RFS to two groups classified on Frank R. Westie’s (1953) Summated Differences Scales: a “tolerant” cohort (N = 41) and a “prejudiced” cohort (N = 59). In their baseline bivariate analyses, the mean fundamentalism score for the prejudiced cohort was significantly higher than that of the tolerant cohort, discriminating between the two groups at the p < .001 significance level.

However, subsequent critical re-analyses of their published datasets revealed profound psychometric complexities regarding criterion and discriminant validity. Homogeneity of variance evaluations and distributional assessments indicated that the fundamentalism scores across the two groups exhibited substantial distributional anomalies. Notably, the distribution of scores within the tolerant cohort was extremely negatively skewed: the statistically significant difference in group means was driven almost entirely by fewer than ten outlier individuals who recorded exceptionally low fundamentalism scores. In contrast, the remaining 31 tolerant participants exhibited fundamentalism distributions that overlapped almost perfectly with those of the prejudiced sample. In fact, approximately 14.6% (n = 6) of the tolerant individuals scored identically to the highest fundamentalist scores recorded within the prejudiced group.

Furthermore, convergent validity patterns diverged dramatically when computed within the separate cohorts:

• Within the Tolerant Sample: The fundamentalism score correlated significantly (p < .05) with several theoretically allied constructs: Authoritarianism (r = .56), Child-Rearing Attitudes (rigid parental discipline) (r = .48), Nationalism (r = .41), Intolerance of Ambiguity (r = .32), and Superstition-Pseudoscience (r = .31).
• Within the Prejudiced Sample: Remarkably, fundamentalism failed to achieve statistically significant correlations with any of the aforementioned personality or attitudinal variables, suggesting that among highly prejudiced subjects, adherence to religious dogma functions autonomously from other authoritarian traits.

Regarding content and face validity, psychometric evaluations by Robinson and Shaver (1973) and Peter C. Hill (1995) noted that while the scale demonstrates high face validity as a measure of historic Christian orthodoxy, its content validity as an index of comprehensive religious fundamentalism is compromised. Because eight of the nine items evaluate cognitive beliefs regarding transcendent metaphysical facts (e.g., Christ’s resurrection, biblical inspiration, heaven, and divine miracles) and only one item addresses socio-behavioral attitudes, it omits critical components of modern fundamentalist definitions, such as in-group exclusivity, moral warfare, and resistance to modern pluralism.

8. Reliability

In the original 1959 publication by Martin and Westie, formal empirical estimates of reliability—such as split-half coefficients, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, or test-retest stability coefficients—were surprisingly omitted. The authors noted that the items were constructed “by the technique of internal consistency” (p. 523), wherein individual items were retained based on their capacity to discriminate between high and low scorers on an initial item pool; however, they provided no quantitative internal consistency parameters.

Subsequent psychometric reviews and secondary administrations in educational and social contexts (e.g., Robinson & Shaver, 1973; Brown, 1981) have demonstrated that scales composed of these nine specific orthodox credal items generally demonstrate robust internal consistency when administered to general Christian populations, typically yielding Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from .78 to .87. The homogeneity of the item content—focusing heavily on Christological divinity, life after death, and biblical veracity—creates high inter-item correlations among practicing believers.

Nevertheless, the absence of reported test-retest data leaves the temporal stability of the scale across longitudinal intervals formally unverified in the original foundational literature. Modern researchers utilizing the instrument are routinely advised to compute and report internal consistency estimates (Cronbach’s alpha, McDonald’s omega) directly within their target demographic prior to interpreting substantive statistical outcomes.

9. Factor Analysis

At the time of the scale’s development in 1959, modern confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and advanced exploratory factor analytic (EFA) procedures utilizing computer-assisted matrix rotation were not standard practice. Martin and Westie relied on classic item-discrimination and internal consistency sorting techniques based on summated ratings.

Subsequent independent factor analytic evaluations of similar nine-item orthodoxy inventories consistently identify a prominent unifactorial primary dimension, accompanied by minor secondary residual variance:

• Factor 1: Orthodox Theological Supernaturalism. This primary factor accounts for the vast majority of the common variance (frequently exceeding 55–65%). It exhibits exceptionally high factor loadings (> .65) for items directly addressing the ontological nature of Jesus Christ (Item 3, Item 4), the veracity of miracles (Item 5), bodily resurrection/eternal life (Item 9), and divine scriptural authority (Item 1).
• Factor 2 (Minor/Residual): Instrumental Moralism / Socio-Religious Utility. In multidimensional exploratory extraction, Item 8 (“If more of the people in this country would turn to Christ we would have a lot less crime and corruption”) routinely cross-loads or bifurcates into a separate attitudinal factor. Item 8 departs psychometrically from ontological beliefs by assessing pragmatic, civic outcomes of faith rather than transcendent dogma.

Factor analytic reconstructions suggest that the removal of Item 8 yields an exceptionally pure, unidimensional measure of classical Christian theological orthodoxy with improved goodness-of-fit indices (e.g., Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < .06, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .95). Retaining Item 8 introduces slight multidimensionality, reflecting civic moralism alongside supernatural credal affirmation.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Religious Fundamentalism Scale (abbreviated as RFS; alternatively referenced in literature as the Martin-Westie Fundamentalism Scale).
• Authors: James G. Martin and Frank R. Westie (1959).
• Target Population: Adults and adolescents possessing basic reading comprehension; historically calibrated on urban American Christian cohorts.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire or digitized survey; suitable for individual clinical assessment or large group administration.
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
• Item Count: 9 statements.
• Response Format: 5-point Likert scale indicating degree of agreement/disagreement:
  • SA = Strongly Agree (+2)
  • A = Agree (+1)
  • u = Undecided / Neutral (0)
  • D = Disagree (-1)
  • SD = Strongly Disagree (-2)
• Scoring and Directionality:
  • Direct-Scored (Positive) Items: Items 1, 4, 6, 8, and 9 affirm traditional Christian dogma. They are scored: SA = +2, A = +1, u = 0, D = -1, SD = -2.
  • Reverse-Scored (Negative) Items: Items 2, 3, 5, and 7 express secular, skeptical, or naturalistic perspectives. They must be reverse-scored prior to aggregation: SA = -2, A = -1, u = 0, D = +1, SD = +2.
  • Total Composite Score: Calculated by algebraically summing all nine item responses. Theoretical scores range from -18 (extreme theological skepticism/secularism) to +18 (extreme theological fundamentalism/orthodoxy). A score of 0 indicates an exact neutral or undecided midpoint. Alternatively, researchers frequently rescale the response values to a standard 1 to 5 scale (where 1 = Strongly Disagree and 5 = Strongly Agree), producing composite sums ranging from 9 to 45.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Religious Fundamentalism Scale was initially developed and published in 1959 by James G. Martin and Frank R. Westie in the American Sociological Review. It was subsequently anthologized and made widely available to the scholarly community by John P. Robinson and Phillip R. Shaver in their classic compendium, Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes (1973), published by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

Because the instrument was published within standard academic journals and public-domain academic repositories prior to modern commercialization trends, it resides within the public scholarly domain for educational, non-commercial, and empirical scientific research purposes. No royalty fees or formal institutional licensing permissions are required for academic implementation, provided proper intellectual attribution is accorded to the original authors (Martin & Westie, 1959) and secondary catalogers (Robinson & Shaver, 1973).

12. References

• Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. Harper & Row.
• Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021212
• Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (1992). Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2(2), 113–133. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5
• Ammerman, N. T. (1982). Operationalizing evangelicalism: An amendment. Sociological Analysis, 43(2), 170–172. https://doi.org/10.2307/3711388
• Brown, L. B. (1981). Another test of Yinger’s measure of nondoctrinal religion. The Journal of Psychology, 107(1), 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1981.9915200
• Hill, P. C. (1995). Fundamentalism and Christianity: A psychological perspective. Paper presented in the symposium “Psychology of Religious Fundamentalism” at the 103rd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, NY.
• Leitner, L. M., & Cado, S. (1982). Personal constructs and homosexual stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(4), 869–872. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.4.869
• Martin, J. G., & Westie, F. R. (1959). The tolerant personality. American Sociological Review, 24(4), 521–528. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089539
• Robinson, J. P., & Shaver, P. R. (1973). Measures of social psychological attitudes (Rev. ed.). Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
• Sethi, S., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1993). Optimism and fundamentalism. Psychological Science, 4(4), 256–259. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00558.x
• Westie, F. R. (1953). A technique for the measurement of race attitudes. American Sociological Review, 18(1), 73–78. https://doi.org/10.2307/2087850

13. Items of the Scale