Perceived Religious Motivation

Abstract

Research in perceived religious motivations is generally based upon Allport's intrinsic-extrinsic distinction. However, this approach never searched for multiple religious motivations and was developed within a North American Protestant para- digm. Theoretically, multiple religious motivations are expected that should transfer across religions and across cultures. To sample possible religious motivations, college students in a religiously and culturally pluralistic setting developed items representing religious motivations that they had perceived. This resulted in 5 new religious motivations. To test for transfer, the intrinsic-extrinsic and the 5 new religious motivations were compared between (a) English-speaking Christians and Asian Christians and between (b) Asian Christians and Asian non-Christians. The patterns of reliabilities and correlations among motivations were found to be reasonably replicable across cultures and religions. The correlations suggest that religious motivations are mutually enhancing. The low correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in the intrinsic-extrinsic research may be a function of the implicit rank ordering implied in the questions, rather than religious motivation itself.