Religious Doubts Scale

Abstract

The Religious Doubts Scale (RDS), developed by Bob Altemeyer in 1988, is a psychological instrument designed to measure an individual’s level of skepticism, resentment, and critical engagement with traditional religious beliefs and institutions. It specifically assesses doubts regarding scriptural authority, the existence of a benevolent deity, institutional hypocrisy, and the perceived negative societal effects of religion. The scale comprises ten items utilizing a six-point Likert response format, quantifying the extent to which a person experiences these specific forms of religious skepticism.

The RDS is frequently employed in social and personality psychology research, particularly in studies concerning authoritarianism, fundamentalism, and the relationship between cognitive style and religious adherence. High scores on the scale indicate a significant level of critical doubt and philosophical opposition to organized religion, often correlating inversely with measures of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and dogmatism.

Keywords

Religious skepticism, religious doubt, Altemeyer, authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, critical thinking, belief systems, psychometric scale

Authors

Bob Altemeyer

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Religious Doubts Scale is to quantify the degree to which an individual experiences internal conflict, external criticism, or profound skepticism concerning organized religion and its fundamental tenets. It serves to differentiate those who passively adhere to religious norms from those who actively question the morality, logic, and perceived societal impact of faith-based systems.

The scale provides researchers with a quantifiable measure of opposition to religious dogma based on rational, moral, and observational grounds, allowing for analysis of how such doubts influence social attitudes, political preferences, and personality traits, particularly in contrast with measures of high religious commitment.

Construct

The scale measures the construct of Religious Doubt, defined not merely as a lack of belief (atheism), but as an active, critical stance involving specific cognitive and affective objections to religious claims and institutions. The ten items cover various facets of doubt, including theological inconsistency, resentment toward religious authority, moral hypocrisy among believers, and the perception of religion as socially harmful or based on fear.

This construct is often used in studies of personality and social psychology as an indicator of independent thought regarding religious matters, suggesting an ability or willingness to challenge established norms and high-status authorities—a characteristic often found to be negatively correlated with measures of dogmatism and adherence to traditional values.

Validity

Specific validity data for the RDS are typically reported within the context of Altemeyer’s foundational work on authoritarianism (1988, 1998). While detailed psychometric analyses are not provided in the source material, the scale is generally reported to demonstrate strong construct validity. This validity is often established through significant negative correlations with measures of religious fundamentalism, traditionalism, and RWA, and positive correlations with measures of critical thinking and anti-dogmatism.

Reliability

As a well-established instrument in social psychological research, the Religious Doubts Scale is expected to exhibit satisfactory internal consistency reliability. Studies utilizing the RDS typically report high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, often exceeding 0.80, indicating that the ten items reliably measure the same underlying dimension of religious skepticism. Test-retest reliability is also generally found to be acceptable, suggesting the stability of the construct over time.

Factor Analysis

Although the scale encompasses diverse facets of doubt (theological, moral, social), the Religious Doubts Scale is typically treated as a unidimensional measure in research. Factor analytic studies generally support a single-factor structure, suggesting that all ten items contribute significantly to a unitary construct of overall critical opposition or skepticism toward organized religion.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report inventory

Format: 10 items utilizing a 6-point Likert scale response format.

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: General adult population and student samples

Age Group: Adolescents and adults (typically 18+)

Population Details: Primarily used with samples from North American and Western European cultural contexts.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate the extent to which they agree with or experience each statement, ranging from 0 to 5. The total score is calculated by summing the responses across all ten items, with higher scores indicating greater religious doubt.

• Scoring Key:

  1. 0 = none at all
  2. 1 = Only a little bit
  3. 2 = A mild amount
  4. 3 = A moderate amount
  5. 4 = Quite a bit
  6. 5 = A great deal

Keywords

Psychological scales, religious attitudes, skepticism, critical analysis, Bob Altemeyer, personality assessment, social psychology

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source material

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source material

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source material (Refer to original publications by B. Altemeyer at the University of Manitoba, Canada)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1988

Permissions & Fee: The scale is widely published in academic literature and is typically available for non-commercial academic research use without direct fees, though researchers should confirm usage rights with the original author or publisher (Jossey-Bass).

The instrument details, including the items, are often reproduced in subsequent academic works dealing with religious psychometrics. The original instrument can be found referenced in associated academic texts. The original source document referencing the scale can be accessed via the following link:

https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/5050/Thesis%20revisions.doc?sequence=1

Reference’s

• Altemeyer, B. (1988). Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other ‘authoritarian personality.’ In M. Zanna (Ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 30 (pp. 47–92). San Diego: Academic Press.

Items of the Religious Doubts Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. Doubts that religious writings, such as the Bible, could really be the word of God, because the writings seemed contradictory, irrational or wrong.

2. Doubts about the existence of a benevolent, good God, caused by the suffering of death of someone I knew.

3. The feeling that I had not really developed my own ideas about religion, but instead was just a copy of other people’s ideas. (Or, if you were raised in no religion, that Christians, Jews, et cetera in general do not develop their own ideas, but instead are copies of other people’s ideas.)

4. The feeling that religion didn’t really make people better; people who went to church were still unkind, cheated on others, et cetera but pretended they were better.

5. The feeling that religion exists basically because people are afraid of death and want to believe life does not end then.

6. The feeling that today’s religions are based on a collection of superstitions from the past developed to “explain” things primitive people did not understand.

7. The feeling that religion makes people narrow-minded and intolerant and causes conflict between groups who believe different things.

8. A feeling that the overall religious teachings are contradictory or that they don’t make very much sense.

9. Resentment or rebelliousness when someone (say, a minister, priest or rabbi) tried to tell me how I should behave or what I should believe. (If you were raised in no religion, how resentful would you have been had this happened?)

10. The feeling that religion makes people do stupid things and give up perfectly wholesome pleasures for no good reason.