Psychological Reports: Sociocultural Issues in Psychology 2015, 116, 3, 986-989. © Psychological Reports 2015
SELF-REPORTED RELIGIOSITY IN KUWAITI AND AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS1 AHMED M. ABDEL-KHALEK University of Alexandria, Egypt DAVID LESTER Stockton University Summary.—In previous research, Kuwaiti students obtained higher scores than American students on a religiosity scale. For the present study, the self-reported religiosity of Kuwaiti and American students was assessed using a single item. The respondents were 154 Kuwaiti students (M age = 20.8 yr., SD = 2.4) and 154 American college students (M age = 21.8 yr., SD = 5.0; 82% women in both samples). The Kuwaiti students responded in Arabic and the American students in English to the question: “What is your level of religiosity in general?” using an 11-point Likert format anchored by 0 and 10. The high score indicates high religiosity. The Kuwaiti students obtained a significantly higher mean score for religiosity than did their American counterparts (6.5 vs 4.5), indicating that religiosity is more important in the lives of the present sample of Kuwaiti students than in their American counterparts. A singleitem self-rating scale may be useful in brief surveys such as epidemiological studies.
Religion is one of the major influential forces in human life. Research into the psychology of religion has grown in recent years (see Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2003). This interest in the study of religion has been driven in large measure by the findings of a positive relationship between religiosity/spirituality and physical and mental health (Seybold, 2007). Furthermore, religious participation has been studied as a protective factor for depression and suicidal behavior (Lester, 2012) and in primary health care (Astrow, Puchalski, & Sulmasy, 2001). There are many religions, and historical, demographic, personality, and cultural factors can affect the level of the religious faith of any given group or society. The level of religiosity may differ from culture to culture, and religiosity may have a different meaning, role, and impact in Christian and Muslim cultures. Furthermore, the role of religion is very different in the Islamic than in the Western world (Abdel-Khalek, 2013). For example, using the Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale2 (Hoge, 1972), Thorson, Powell, Abdel-Khalek, and Beshai (1997) and Abdel-Khalek and Address correspondence to Dr. Ahmed Abdel-Khalek, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Alexandria, Egypt or e-mail ([email protected]). 2 Intrinsic religiosity refers to the role of belief and practice of religion itself, whereas extrinsic religiosity refers to the secondary gain such as the social interactions resulting from attending services. 1
DOI 10.2466/17.PR0.116k31w4
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 986
ISSN 0033-2941
25/05/15 1:21 PM
RELIGIOSITY IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
987
Thorson (2006) found that both Kuwaiti and Egyptian undergraduates scored higher than their American counterparts. The purpose of the present study was to test whether differences in religiosity documented in previous research with a multi-item scale using Kuwaiti and American college students could be replicated using a single-item scale. The use of a single-item scale has some advantages. Wills (2009) noted that the use of single-item scales assumes that individuals will respond to the most relevant meaning that comes to mind in relation to the subject of the question and answer accordingly. Furthermore, deriving equivalent religiosity scales for respondents from two different religions is very difficult, if not impossible. Places and styles of worship differ between religions. For example, a Muslim Religiosity Scale (Wilde & Joseph, 1997) contains items such as, “The five prayers help me a lot” and “I fast the whole month of Ramadan.” These items have no identical equivalents in Christianity. The result has been the use of different scales for Muslim and Christian samples, making comparison of the scores of the samples impossible. One disadvantage of multi-item scales is that the items are rarely homogenous (e.g., Hills, Francis, & Robbins, 2005). For example, in their study of 165 college students using the 24-item religiosity scale of Francis (1992), Krysinska, Lester, Lyke, and Corveleyn (in press) identified three independent (orthogonal) factors. If there are pre-designed subscales, the items on each subscale often do not load on the appropriate factor using factor analyses. In a sample of 419 college students, Lester and Walker (in press) identified three orthogonal factors for the 14-item Gorsuch and McPherson (1989) Intrinsic–Extrinsic Religiosity Scale, none of which matched the three designed subscales. Another disadvantage is that a multi-item scale requires that the designer phrase the concept in many different ways, thereby increasing the chance that the designer's interpretation of the concept influences the content of the items. On the other hand, a multi-item measure of religiosity (or any variable) does permit an exploration of the inter-item reliability of the scale (e.g., using Cronbach's α). The aim of the present study was to compare undergraduates from Kuwait and the United States on self-reported religiosity using a single item. Previous research, mentioned above, found that Kuwaiti students scored higher than American students on a multi-item scale, and so it was hypothesized that Kuwaiti students would obtain higher scores than American students on the single-item question. Two convenience samples of 154 Kuwaiti students at Kuwait University and 154 American undergraduates at Stockton University in New Jersey were recruited from the authors’ psychology classes, matched for sex and roughly for age (28 men, 126 women in both samples). The male–
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A. M. ABDEL-KHALEK & D. LESTER
female ratio in the samples matched the ratio for social science majors at both universities. Their mean ages were 20.8 yr. (SD = 2.4) and 21.8 yr. (SD = 5.0) for the Kuwaiti and American samples, respectively. All participants responded to a single-item self-rating scale: “What is your level of religiosity in general?” This question was followed by a scale of response options ranging from 0 to 10. In previous research (Abdel-Khalek, 2007), the correlation between this single-item rating of religiosity and the multiitem Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale (10 items) was .51 indicating acceptable criterion-related validity, and the 1-wk. test-retest reliability was .89, indicating good temporal stability. Kuwaiti participants responded to the rating scale in Arabic, whereas Americans responded in English. The mean scores for the self-rating scale were 6.47 (SD = 1.78) and 4.51 (SD = 2.53) for the Kuwaiti and American samples, respectively (t306 = 7.86, p < .0001, Cohen's d = 0.09), indicating that the Kuwaiti students reported higher religiosity than did the American students. Religion may play a stronger role for Kuwaiti undergraduate students than for American undergraduate students. The present study suggests that a single-item religiosity measure may be useful in surveys when the time available for the participants is limited, particularly in epidemiological surveys. Future research should compare the use of single-item and multi-items measures in the same study, using several national samples. Future research should also explore whether the results might differ for men and women, since there was a predominance of women in the present samples. REFERENCES
ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M. (2007) Assessment of intrinsic religiosity with a single-item measure in a sample of Arab Muslims. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 2, 211-215. ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M. (2013) Personality dimensions and religiosity among Kuwaiti Muslim college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 149-152. ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M., & THORSON, J. A. (2006) Religiosity and death anxiety in American and Egyptian college students. In M. V. Landow (Ed.), College students: mental health and coping strategies. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. Pp. 167-185. ASTROW, A. B., PUCHALSKI, C. M., & SULMASY, D. P. (2001) Religion, spirituality, and health care: social, ethical, and practical considerations. American Journal of Medicine, 110, 283-287. FRANCIS, L. J. (1992) Reliability and validity of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (adult). Panorama, 4, 17-19. GORSUCH, R. L., & MCPHERSON, S. E. (1989) Intrinsic/extrinsic measurement. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28, 348-354. HILLS, P., FRANCIS, L., & ROBBINS, M. (2005) The development of the revised Religious Life Inventory (RLI–R) by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1389-1399. HOGE, D. R. (1972) A validated intrinsic religious motivation scale. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 11, 369-376.
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RELIGIOSITY IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
989
KRYSINSKA, K., LESTER, D., LYKE, J., & CORVELEYN, J. (in press) Trait gratitude and suicidal ideation and behavior. Crisis. LESTER, D. (2012) Spirituality and religiosity as predictors of depression and suicidal ideation. Psychological Reports, 110, 247-250. LESTER, D., & WALKER, R. L. (in press) Religiosity is a protective factor for suicidal ideation in European American students but not in African-American students. Omega. SEYBOLD, K. S. (2007) Physiological mechanisms involved in religiosity/spirituality and health. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 30, 303-309. SPILKA, B., HOOD, R. W., JR., HUNSBERGER, B., & GORSUCH, R. (2003) The psychology of religion: an empirical approach. (3rd ed.) New York: Guilford Press. THORSON, J. A., POWELL, F. C., ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M., & BESHAI, J. A. (1997) Constructions of religiosity and death anxiety in two cultures: the United States and Kuwait. Journal of Psychology & Theology, 25, 374-383. WILDE, A., & JOSEPH, S. (1997) Religiosity and personality in a Moslem context. Personality and Individual Differences, 23, 899-900. WILLS, E. (2009) Spirituality and subjective well-being: evidences for a new domain in the Personal Well-being Index. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 49-69. Accepted April 23, 2015.
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 989
25/05/15 1:21 PM
Copyright of Psychological Reports is the property of Ammons Scientific, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
SELF-REPORTED RELIGIOSITY IN KUWAITI AND AMERICAN COLLEGE STUDENTS1 AHMED M. ABDEL-KHALEK University of Alexandria, Egypt DAVID LESTER Stockton University Summary.—In previous research, Kuwaiti students obtained higher scores than American students on a religiosity scale. For the present study, the self-reported religiosity of Kuwaiti and American students was assessed using a single item. The respondents were 154 Kuwaiti students (M age = 20.8 yr., SD = 2.4) and 154 American college students (M age = 21.8 yr., SD = 5.0; 82% women in both samples). The Kuwaiti students responded in Arabic and the American students in English to the question: “What is your level of religiosity in general?” using an 11-point Likert format anchored by 0 and 10. The high score indicates high religiosity. The Kuwaiti students obtained a significantly higher mean score for religiosity than did their American counterparts (6.5 vs 4.5), indicating that religiosity is more important in the lives of the present sample of Kuwaiti students than in their American counterparts. A singleitem self-rating scale may be useful in brief surveys such as epidemiological studies.
Religion is one of the major influential forces in human life. Research into the psychology of religion has grown in recent years (see Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2003). This interest in the study of religion has been driven in large measure by the findings of a positive relationship between religiosity/spirituality and physical and mental health (Seybold, 2007). Furthermore, religious participation has been studied as a protective factor for depression and suicidal behavior (Lester, 2012) and in primary health care (Astrow, Puchalski, & Sulmasy, 2001). There are many religions, and historical, demographic, personality, and cultural factors can affect the level of the religious faith of any given group or society. The level of religiosity may differ from culture to culture, and religiosity may have a different meaning, role, and impact in Christian and Muslim cultures. Furthermore, the role of religion is very different in the Islamic than in the Western world (Abdel-Khalek, 2013). For example, using the Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale2 (Hoge, 1972), Thorson, Powell, Abdel-Khalek, and Beshai (1997) and Abdel-Khalek and Address correspondence to Dr. Ahmed Abdel-Khalek, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Alexandria, Egypt or e-mail ([email protected]). 2 Intrinsic religiosity refers to the role of belief and practice of religion itself, whereas extrinsic religiosity refers to the secondary gain such as the social interactions resulting from attending services. 1
DOI 10.2466/17.PR0.116k31w4
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 986
ISSN 0033-2941
25/05/15 1:21 PM
RELIGIOSITY IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
987
Thorson (2006) found that both Kuwaiti and Egyptian undergraduates scored higher than their American counterparts. The purpose of the present study was to test whether differences in religiosity documented in previous research with a multi-item scale using Kuwaiti and American college students could be replicated using a single-item scale. The use of a single-item scale has some advantages. Wills (2009) noted that the use of single-item scales assumes that individuals will respond to the most relevant meaning that comes to mind in relation to the subject of the question and answer accordingly. Furthermore, deriving equivalent religiosity scales for respondents from two different religions is very difficult, if not impossible. Places and styles of worship differ between religions. For example, a Muslim Religiosity Scale (Wilde & Joseph, 1997) contains items such as, “The five prayers help me a lot” and “I fast the whole month of Ramadan.” These items have no identical equivalents in Christianity. The result has been the use of different scales for Muslim and Christian samples, making comparison of the scores of the samples impossible. One disadvantage of multi-item scales is that the items are rarely homogenous (e.g., Hills, Francis, & Robbins, 2005). For example, in their study of 165 college students using the 24-item religiosity scale of Francis (1992), Krysinska, Lester, Lyke, and Corveleyn (in press) identified three independent (orthogonal) factors. If there are pre-designed subscales, the items on each subscale often do not load on the appropriate factor using factor analyses. In a sample of 419 college students, Lester and Walker (in press) identified three orthogonal factors for the 14-item Gorsuch and McPherson (1989) Intrinsic–Extrinsic Religiosity Scale, none of which matched the three designed subscales. Another disadvantage is that a multi-item scale requires that the designer phrase the concept in many different ways, thereby increasing the chance that the designer's interpretation of the concept influences the content of the items. On the other hand, a multi-item measure of religiosity (or any variable) does permit an exploration of the inter-item reliability of the scale (e.g., using Cronbach's α). The aim of the present study was to compare undergraduates from Kuwait and the United States on self-reported religiosity using a single item. Previous research, mentioned above, found that Kuwaiti students scored higher than American students on a multi-item scale, and so it was hypothesized that Kuwaiti students would obtain higher scores than American students on the single-item question. Two convenience samples of 154 Kuwaiti students at Kuwait University and 154 American undergraduates at Stockton University in New Jersey were recruited from the authors’ psychology classes, matched for sex and roughly for age (28 men, 126 women in both samples). The male–
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 987
25/05/15 1:21 PM
988
A. M. ABDEL-KHALEK & D. LESTER
female ratio in the samples matched the ratio for social science majors at both universities. Their mean ages were 20.8 yr. (SD = 2.4) and 21.8 yr. (SD = 5.0) for the Kuwaiti and American samples, respectively. All participants responded to a single-item self-rating scale: “What is your level of religiosity in general?” This question was followed by a scale of response options ranging from 0 to 10. In previous research (Abdel-Khalek, 2007), the correlation between this single-item rating of religiosity and the multiitem Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale (10 items) was .51 indicating acceptable criterion-related validity, and the 1-wk. test-retest reliability was .89, indicating good temporal stability. Kuwaiti participants responded to the rating scale in Arabic, whereas Americans responded in English. The mean scores for the self-rating scale were 6.47 (SD = 1.78) and 4.51 (SD = 2.53) for the Kuwaiti and American samples, respectively (t306 = 7.86, p < .0001, Cohen's d = 0.09), indicating that the Kuwaiti students reported higher religiosity than did the American students. Religion may play a stronger role for Kuwaiti undergraduate students than for American undergraduate students. The present study suggests that a single-item religiosity measure may be useful in surveys when the time available for the participants is limited, particularly in epidemiological surveys. Future research should compare the use of single-item and multi-items measures in the same study, using several national samples. Future research should also explore whether the results might differ for men and women, since there was a predominance of women in the present samples. REFERENCES
ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M. (2007) Assessment of intrinsic religiosity with a single-item measure in a sample of Arab Muslims. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 2, 211-215. ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M. (2013) Personality dimensions and religiosity among Kuwaiti Muslim college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 149-152. ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M., & THORSON, J. A. (2006) Religiosity and death anxiety in American and Egyptian college students. In M. V. Landow (Ed.), College students: mental health and coping strategies. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science. Pp. 167-185. ASTROW, A. B., PUCHALSKI, C. M., & SULMASY, D. P. (2001) Religion, spirituality, and health care: social, ethical, and practical considerations. American Journal of Medicine, 110, 283-287. FRANCIS, L. J. (1992) Reliability and validity of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (adult). Panorama, 4, 17-19. GORSUCH, R. L., & MCPHERSON, S. E. (1989) Intrinsic/extrinsic measurement. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28, 348-354. HILLS, P., FRANCIS, L., & ROBBINS, M. (2005) The development of the revised Religious Life Inventory (RLI–R) by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1389-1399. HOGE, D. R. (1972) A validated intrinsic religious motivation scale. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 11, 369-376.
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 988
25/05/15 1:21 PM
RELIGIOSITY IN COLLEGE STUDENTS
989
KRYSINSKA, K., LESTER, D., LYKE, J., & CORVELEYN, J. (in press) Trait gratitude and suicidal ideation and behavior. Crisis. LESTER, D. (2012) Spirituality and religiosity as predictors of depression and suicidal ideation. Psychological Reports, 110, 247-250. LESTER, D., & WALKER, R. L. (in press) Religiosity is a protective factor for suicidal ideation in European American students but not in African-American students. Omega. SEYBOLD, K. S. (2007) Physiological mechanisms involved in religiosity/spirituality and health. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 30, 303-309. SPILKA, B., HOOD, R. W., JR., HUNSBERGER, B., & GORSUCH, R. (2003) The psychology of religion: an empirical approach. (3rd ed.) New York: Guilford Press. THORSON, J. A., POWELL, F. C., ABDEL-KHALEK, A. M., & BESHAI, J. A. (1997) Constructions of religiosity and death anxiety in two cultures: the United States and Kuwait. Journal of Psychology & Theology, 25, 374-383. WILDE, A., & JOSEPH, S. (1997) Religiosity and personality in a Moslem context. Personality and Individual Differences, 23, 899-900. WILLS, E. (2009) Spirituality and subjective well-being: evidences for a new domain in the Personal Well-being Index. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 49-69. Accepted April 23, 2015.
23-PR_Abdel-Khalek_150060.indd 989
25/05/15 1:21 PM
Copyright of Psychological Reports is the property of Ammons Scientific, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
