RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION SCALE

Abstract

The Religious Association Scale (RAS) is a psychometric instrument designed to measure religiosity as a behavioral ability or performance, rather than a fixed personality trait. The stress of the scale is on performance—what a person does—in terms of cognitive association.

The final, short version of the scale consists of 25 three-letter consonant-vowel-consonant (trigrams), or nonsense syllables. Respondents are explicitly requested to provide a religious word association to each trigram and then use that word in a complete sentence. Scoring involves assigning a score of 1 for religious content and 0 otherwise, resulting in a computed total religiosity score.

Keywords

Religious Association Scale, RAS, Religiosity, Word association, Trigrams, Psychological assessment, Religious commitment, Psychometrics.

Authors

R. A. Embree

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Religious Association Scale (RAS) is to assess an individual’s level of religiosity by focusing on observable behavior and cognitive performance. Unlike traditional measures that often query beliefs or attitudes, the RAS operationalizes religiosity as an ability—specifically, the capacity to spontaneously link neutral, ambiguous stimuli (nonsense syllables) to religious concepts.

This methodology shifts the focus away from measuring static personality predispositions and instead emphasizes the accessibility and salience of religious concepts in the respondent’s cognitive framework, thereby measuring religious performance rather than identity.

Construct

The RAS measures Religiosity defined as an associative or cognitive ability. This construct posits that a highly religious individual will possess a greater facility for retrieving religious concepts when confronted with ambiguous stimuli, such as consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) trigrams. The scale is designed to quantify this associative strength.

The measure specifically targets religious commitment through the mechanism of word association, where the frequency of religious responses to the standardized trigrams indicates the degree to which religious concepts are cognitively salient and readily accessible to the respondent. This is distinct from self-report measures of religious attitude.

Validity

Validation studies showed that the 80-item RAS correlated positively and significantly with a number of other objective scales of religiosity, although these coefficients were low to moderate. This result suggests that the RAS assesses an aspect of religiosity that is unique and not fully captured by more traditional measures.

The refined 25-item short form demonstrated independence from academic (intellectual) ability, a potential confounding factor in the longer form. Furthermore, the short form correlates positively and significantly with measures of religious conservatism and intrinsic religious motivation. RAS scores were also found to be independent of the subscales in the Omnibus Personality Inventory and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale, providing evidence that the scores are not highly susceptible to common response biases.

Reliability

The RAS exhibits a high degree of internal consistency across both versions. Internal consistency reliability coefficients range from 0.90 to 0.97, indicating excellent cohesion among the items. Specifically, the 80-item long version achieved coefficients of 0.96 and 0.97, while the 25-item short form reported coefficients of 0.90 and 0.92.

The measure also demonstrated strong interscorer reliability, yielding a coefficient of 0.93, confirming that the scoring process—which assigns a binary score based on the presence of religious content—is objective and highly reliable. The odd-even internal consistency for the 80-item scale was reported at 0.97, further supporting the stability of the measure.

Factor Analysis

A principal components analysis using varimax rotation was conducted, comparing the RAS score with four other religious measures and an index of scholastic ability. The analysis resulted in two distinct factors.

The RAS score loaded at 0.38 and 0.58 on these two factors. A key finding was that one of these factors showed a very high loading for general scholastic ability, suggesting that intellectual capacity might influence the scores of the initial long form of the RAS. The subsequent revision to the 25-item short form aimed successfully to minimize this influence, demonstrating independence from intellectual ability.

Instrument

Test Type: Performance-based associative measure / Paper-and-pencil test

Format: Two forms exist: an 80-item long form and a 25-item short form. Items consist of CVC trigrams (nonsense syllables) scaled for Religious Association Value (RAV).

Language Available: English

Population Group: College Students (Undergraduates)

Age Group: Late Adolescence/Adulthood (Primarily traditional college age)

Population Details: The scale was developed and validated exclusively on 270 undergraduate students in various development and validation studies. The instrument has not been standardized or normed for use with non-college populations.

Test Methodology: The test is easily administered in group settings and requires only minor training for scoring. To mitigate response bias and order effects, it is strongly recommended that the RAS be administered to participants prior to any other measures concerned with religiosity.

Keywords

Religious Association Scale, RAS, Religiosity, Word association, Trigrams, Intrinsic religious motivation, Religious commitment, Psychometrics, R. A. Embree.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A

Correspondence Address: Dr. R. A. Embree, 926 Third Ave. S. E., Le Mars, Iowa 51031.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: Initial development and publication occurred in 1970 (Embree, 1970).

Permissions/Availability: The last two unpublished papers (Religious Association Scale (Short form) and An interpretation of the short form revision of the Religious Association Scale) are available from the author at the correspondence address listed above.

Subsequent Research: Little subsequent work has employed this scale since its initial publication.

Reference’s

• Embree, R. A. (1970). The religious association scale as an “abilities” measure of the religious factor in personality. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 9, 299-302.

• Embree, R. A. (1973). The religious association scale: A preliminary validation study. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 12, 223-226.

• Embree, R. A. (undated). Religious Association Scale (Short form).

• Embree, R. A. (undated). An interpretation of the short form revision of the Religious Association Scale. (The last two unpublished papers are available from Dr. R. A. Embree, 926 Third Ave. S. E., Le Mars, Iowa 51031.)

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Items of the RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION SCALE

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

Instructions. This Scale is designed to measure social attitudes. Look at each nonsense syllable and pronounce it to yourself silently. Is the nonsense syllable a word or does it sound like a word you associate with religion-a biblical character, place, idea, church or church teaching? Write that word in the small blank next to the syllable. Then use the word in a short complete sentence. If you do not associate the nonsense syllable with religion, then write the word you do associate with the nonsense syllable. Use that word in a short sentence. Leave no blanks.

Study the examples below, then turn the sheet over and begin.

Examples:

RAB Rabbi A Rabbi is a religious leader in the Jewish faith.

QAK Quaker The Quaker religion is mentioned in American history books.

TYR Martyr Paul was a Christian martyr.

(Below are given the full 80 nonsense syllables for the long form, along with their Religious Association Values. The final 25 in the short form are denoted by an (*).

The RAVs assume a decimal. The CVCs are in random order as they appear on the scales. The values are for males and females combined.

General Setup (first 2 items)

Word Sentence