Attitudes Toward Religion Scale: development and initial psychometric evaluation among Chinese college students

ABSTRACT

The Attitudes Toward Religion Scale (ATRS) was developed to access the level of interest in and position toward the five state-approved religions in China. Data were analysed across two samples of Chinese college students. With Sample 1 (N = 278), exploratory factor analyses were used to select the 10 ATRS items corresponding to two factors: Interest and Position. With Sample 2, confirmatory factor analyses (N = 270) cross-validated the two-factor oblique model as well as a bifactor model. Cronbach alphas of ATRS subscale scores in the two samples ranged from .75 to .85. ATRS-Interest and Position were both positively associated with number of close relationships with religious people. In addition, negative attitudes toward religion was associated with being religiously proselytised by strangers. Moreover, female students reported more favourable attitudes toward religion compared to their male counterparts. The overall results support ATRS as a psychometrically strong and promising measure.

KEYWORDS:

• attitude
• religion
• China
• scale development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Travis Research Institute.

Notes on contributors

Kenneth T. Wang

Kenneth T. Wang is an Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. He received his PhD in Counseling Psychology from Penn State University. Prior to Fuller, Kenneth taught at University of Missouri and worked as a staff psychologist at the University of Illinois. Kenneth’s research focuses on psychological measurement, cross-cultural psychological adjustment, and perfectionism. He is currently involved in several projects related to the development of Chinese indigenous measures and examining religious perfectionism. He is a coauthor of the textbook Research Design in Counseling (4th edn).

Zhongyao Xie

Zhongyao Xie is a lecturer at China University of Political Science and Law. He received his PhD in Medical Psychology Department from Peking University Health Science Center. His research focuses on religious psychology, indigenous psychology, and cultural psychology. Currently, he is working with Dr Kenneth Wang on research projects regarding religious perfectionism among Chinese people.

Austin M. Johnson

Austin Johnson is a student at Fuller Theological Seminary’s Graduate School of Psychology in Pasadena, CA where is working toward his PhD in Clinical Psychology. He has an MA in Anthropology from California State University, Los Angeles.

Yanmei Cao

Yanmei Cao was a visiting scholar in Clinical Psychology at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. She received her MS in Applied Psychology from Shanxi Medical University in China. Yanmei’s research focuses on psychological scales development, qualitative studies as well as psychological and spiritual well-being at the end-of-life. She is currently involved in several projects related to the development of Chinese indigenous measures and examining religious perfectionism, and the development and clinical applications of the dying dignity scale and the spiritual coping scale.

Li Zhang

Li Zhang is a doctoral candidate in Social Psychology at the Tsinghua University. He holds an MS in Applied Psychology from the University of Southern California. His research interest lies in the cultural difference of moral judgment and moral decision-making, especially how thinking style and social structure affect morality. He participated in the development of Chinese indigenous measures of religious attitude and religious perfectionism.

Allison Parsley

Allison Parsley was a research assistant at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. She received her BA in Asian and Middle Eastern Language and Literatures with a focus in Chinese at Dartmouth Collage, NH. She is currently working with Dr Kenneth Wang in several projects related to the development of Chinese indigenous measures in religious psychology and clinical psychology.