Indic Religiosity Scale: Developing and Validating an Indian Religiosity Scale

Abstract

The religiosity of one of the world's most populous countries and of its people who constitute the largest diaspora in the world – India, has been ill-researched and ill-captured. A religiosity scale that is grounded in a theoretical understanding of the Indic religions – religions which originated in India – needs to be developed. This scale should demonstrate validity and reliability, besides being parsimonious. An Indic Religiosity Scale based on the commonalities of the major Indic religions – Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism – is developed and validated as a measure for crosscultural studies on religiosity. A 15-item construct with five factors emerged as a valid and reliable measure of religiosity. The five factors include Way of Life; Belief in Rebirth, Karma and Destiny; Existence of Supreme Power; Importance of Prayer and Purposeful Life. The Indic Religiosity Scale (IRS) – with its parsimony and ease of use – can be used in multiple managerial contexts and organizational settings including cross-cultural settings, involving religiosity as a construct.

Catholic Religious Practices Questionnaire (CRPQ): Construction and Analysis of Psychometric Properties

“…In this sense, our questionnaire follows in the line of previous tools that measured Christian religious practices, rituals, and behaviors from a Catholic perspective (Büssing et al 2014(Büssing et al , 2017. It is also in line with a recent research trend to develop scales that examine religious practices and behavior within a specific religion, e.g., Islam (Aziz et al 2021) or Hinduism (Jayakumar and Verma 2021). In addition, data related to the role of popular piety and social change (such as the preservation of national identity during the partitions of Poland and World War II), the overthrow of communism, and current secularization trends provide a case for studying the role of folk practices among Polish Catholics (Roszak and Tykarski 2020).…”

A positive correlation between daily spiritual practice and reduced depressive symptoms among older adults: evidence from a nationally representative survey among the Indian population

“…The items in the current study are adopted from the daily spiritual experience scale (DSES), originally developed for use in health studies, 35,36 and validated and cross‐culturally adapted 37,38 . The variable was generated from four items available in the LASI survey which did not have the word ‘God’ which may be contentious for many and influence their responses, especially in the Indian context where the major proportion of the population worships innumerable gods representing either a philosophy, a natural power or a representation of a certain moral value or quality 39 . Each individual item in the DSES taps one particular aspect of ordinary spiritual experience and various items have been used alone in studies 40 .…”

“…37,38 The variable was generated from four items available in the LASI survey which did not have the word 'God' which may be contentious for many and influence their responses, especially in the Indian context where the major proportion of the population worships innumerable gods representing either a philosophy, a natural power or a representation of a certain moral value or quality. 39 Each individual item in the DSES taps one particular aspect of ordinary spiritual experience and various items have been used alone in studies. 40 The item 'I feel deep inner peace' may be effective when used alone at the end of life since it taps a spiritual sense rather than an absence of anxiety, and the researchers have also found the item 'I am spiritually touched by the beauty of creation' particularly useful since it taps individuals' intimate relationships with a divine person or a being beyond personhood (for those who are religious) and a sense of the real beyond what is seen or touched (for those who are not religious).…”

The association between loneliness and life satisfaction: examining spirituality, religiosity, and religious participation as moderators

“…Daily spiritual experiences : To measure spirituality, we relied on the daily spiritual experience scale (DSES), which originally was developed for use in health studies [ 58 , 59 ], and validated and adapted cross-culturally [ 60 , 61 ]. The variable, which is generated using 4 items available in LASI [ 52 ] did not have the word “God.” This is because in India, a substantial proportion of the population worships innumerable gods representing either a philosophy, a natural power or a representation of a certain moral value or quality [ 62 ]. The four items (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.89) assessed the experiences, rather than particular beliefs or behaviors, in order to transcend the boundaries of any religion in particular [ 58 ].…”