Private Religious Practices

Abstract

The Private Religious Practices (PRP) scale is a brief, four-item instrument developed by Jeff Levin in 1989. It is designed to measure the frequency and intensity of an individual’s personal, non-institutionalized religious and spiritual behaviors. The scale captures activities such as private prayer, consumption of religious media, and reading of sacred texts, distinguishing these solitary acts from public or organizational religious involvement. This instrument is a key component of the Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality framework, extensively utilized in health research to analyze the relationship between faith and well-being.

Keywords

Private Religious Practices, Religiousness, Spirituality, Health Research, Jeff Levin, Measurement, Private Prayer, Religious Literature, Gerontology.

Authors

Jeff Levin, H. Y. Vanderpool, L. M. Chatters, R. J. Taylor.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Private Religious Practices scale is to quantify an essential, yet often overlooked, dimension of religious involvement: the solitary practice of faith. The scale was conceptualized to support epidemiological studies, particularly those investigating the buffering or therapeutic effects of spirituality on physical and mental health outcomes, especially among aging populations.

By focusing specifically on behaviors performed outside of formal communal settings, the PRP scale allows researchers to isolate the impact of intrinsic spiritual commitment and personal religious coping mechanisms, providing a more nuanced understanding of how faith influences individual adjustment and health status.

Construct

The scale measures the behavioral component of Intrinsic Religiousness, defined by voluntary, frequent engagement in personal spiritual disciplines. While organizational religiousness pertains to church attendance, the PRP construct assesses the depth of personal commitment through observable behaviors conducted in private settings.

The items cover a range of activities—from direct communication with the divine (private prayer) to intellectual and behavioral reinforcement of faith (reading religious literature and grace before meals). This construct is crucial for understanding how individuals sustain their spiritual identity and employ personal resources for coping and meaning-making.

Validity

The Private Religious Practices scale possesses strong construct validity, consistently demonstrating its distinctiveness from measures of public or organizational religiousness in factor analytic studies. Its inclusion in the standardized protocols developed by the Fetzer Institute/National Institute on Aging Working Group confirms its theoretical relevance and utility in empirical research.

Furthermore, studies applying the scale, notably those focusing on African American populations (e.g., Levin, Chatters, & Taylor, 1995), have established its criterion validity by showing significant correlations between high scores on private religious practices and positive health outcomes, improved life satisfaction, and reduced morbidity, thereby validating its utility as a predictor in health and social science research.

Reliability

As a widely adopted component of multidimensional religiousness measures, the Private Religious Practices scale typically exhibits acceptable levels of internal consistency. Studies using the scale report satisfactory Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, indicating that the four items cohere well and measure a unified underlying construct of solitary spiritual engagement.

The straightforward, frequency-based nature of the items also supports high test-retest reliability, ensuring that the instrument provides stable measurement results across different administrations. This stability is essential for longitudinal studies tracking religious behavior and health trajectories over time.

Factor Analysis

When subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) alongside other dimensions of religious life (such as organizational involvement and subjective experience), the four items comprising the Private Religious Practices scale reliably load onto a single, independent factor. This finding empirically confirms the scale’s theoretical mandate to measure a distinct domain of religious behavior.

This clear factor structure is important for researchers, as it allows for the precise isolation of the effects of private practices versus public involvement when modeling complex relationships between spirituality and psychosocial variables. The scale’s robust factor loading has secured its place in standard measurement batteries for social epidemiology.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire, frequency scale.

Format: 4 items assessed using an 8-point Likert-type frequency scale.

Language Available: Primarily English; adaptations may exist for specific research contexts.

Population Group: General adult population; frequently employed in studies involving older adults, gerontology, and diverse ethnic groups, particularly African Americans.

Age Group: Typically utilized with adult populations, with a strong focus on older adults due to its origin in gerontological and health research.

Population Details: Used globally in epidemiological studies to assess religious factors influencing health status and adjustment.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to select the frequency (ranging from multiple times daily to never) with which they engage in specified private religious behaviors.

Keywords

Jeff Levin, Religious coping, Gerontology, Private prayer, Spiritual practices, Organizational religiousness, Psychometrics, Fetzer Institute.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source content.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1989 (Initial development and publication).

Permissions and Fee: The Private Religious Practices scale is generally considered part of the public domain resources provided by the Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality for Use in Health Research. The instrument, along with full documentation, can be found online in the report by the Fetzer Institute/National Institute on Aging Working Group. The original document can be accessed here: http://fetzer.org/resources/multidimensional-measurement-religiousnessspirituality-use-health-research. Researchers are encouraged to consult the Fetzer Institute for specific licensing or usage requirements for commercial applications.

Reference’s

• Levin, J. S., & Vanderpool, H. Y. (1989). Is religion therapeutically significant for hypertension? Social Science and Medicine, 29, 69–78.
• Levin JS. (1989). Religious factors in aging, adjustment, and health: a theoretical overview. In: Clements WM, ed. Religion, Aging and Health: A Global Perspective. New York, NY: The Haworth Press and World Health Organization; 133-146.
• Levin JS. (1993), Age differences in mystical experience. Gerontologist. 33:507-513.
• Levin JS. (1989). Religious factors in aging, adjustment, and health: a theoretical overview. In: Clements WM, ed. Religion, Aging and Health: A Global Perspective. New York, NY: The Haworth Press and World Health Organization; 1989:133-146.
• Levin JS, Chatters LM, Taylor RJ. Religious effects on health status and life satisfaction among black Americans. J Gerontol: Soc Sci. 1995;50B:S154-S163.
• Levin JS, Taylor RJ, Chatters LM. A multidimensional measure of religious involvement for African Americans.” Sociol Q. 1995;36:157-173.
• Levin, J. S. (1996). How religion influences morbidity and health: Reflections on natural history, salutogenesis, and host resistance. Social Science and Medicine, 43, 849–864.
• Levin, J. S. (1997). Religious research in gerontology, 1980–1994: A systematic review. Journal of Gerontology, 10 (3), 3–31.
• Levin, J. S., & Chatters, L. M. (1998). Research on religion and mental health: An overview of empirical findings and theoretical issues. In H. G. Koenig (Ed.), Handbook of Religion and Mental Health (pp. 70–84). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
• Levin, J. S. (2001). God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality-healing Connection. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Levin, J. S. (2003). “Bumping the top”: Is mysticism the future of religious gerontology? In M. A. Kimble & S. H. McFadden (Eds), Aging, Spirituality, and Religion: A Handbook, Volume 2 (pp.402–411). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
• Levin, J. S. (2009). How faith heals: A theoretical model. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 5, 77–96.
• Levin, J. S., & Steele, L. (2005). The transcendent experience: Conceptual, theoretical, and epidemiologic perspectives. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 1, 89–101.
• Levin, J. S., Wickramasekera, I. E., & Hirshberg, C. (1998). Is religion a correlate of absorption?: Implications for psychophysiology, coping, and morbidity. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 4(6), 72–76.
• Idler, E. L, Ellison, C. G., George, L. K., Krause, N., Levin, J., Ory, M., Pargament, K., Powell, L., Williams, D., Gordon, L., & Musick, M. A. (2004). Measuring multiple dimensions of religion and spirituality for health research: Conceptual background and findings from the 1998 General Social Survey. Research on Aging, 25, 327-365.

Items of the Private Religious Practices

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

Instructions: Please choose the most accurate response to the following questions.

Response Scale: 1 – Several times a day, 2 – Once a day, 3 – A few times a week, 4 – Once a week, 5 – A few times a month, 6 – Once a month, 7 – Less than once a month, 8 – Never

1. How often do you pray privately in places other than at church or synagogue?
2. How often do you watch or listen to religious programs on TV or radio?
3. How often do you read the Bible or other religious literature?
4. How often are prayers or grace said before or after meals in your home?