Indiscriminate Proreligiousness: Conceptualization and Measurement.

This paper examines indiscriminate proreligiousness as a construct which holds important implications for the scientific study of religion Approaches by researchers relevant to the construct are critically reviewed. As an alternative, our research team developed two scales directly measuring personal and congregational aspects of indiscriminate proreligiousness. The scales were refined using factor analytic methods and were empirically validated on samples of church members and church-going students. Both scales demonstrated evidence of content validity, internal consistency, construct validity, generalizability, and utility. A number of empirical and theoretical questions about the antecedents and consequents of indiscriminate proreligiousness are raised.
This paper examines indiscriminate proreligiousness as a theoretical construct which holds important implications for the empirical study of religion. More specifically, approaches by researchers relevant to the problem of indiscriminate proreligiousness will be critically reviewed. An alternative to these efforts to understand and deal with indiscriminate proreligiousness, one which involves the direct measurement of the construct, will then be presented and examined empirically. These findings simply provide initial support for these direct measures of indiscriminate proreligiousness. Additional studies are necessary to examine these constructs among other samples using other validation operations. Particularly important are investigations which test the relationship between indiscriminate proreligiousness and the accuracy of their religious reports. These studies may help answer a critical question: To what extent is indiscriminate proreligiousness a source of error in our attempts to obtain accurate estimates of religious practices, experiences, and attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]