Development and Initial Validation of a Measure of Religious Maturity

Gordon Allport's (1 950) conceptualization of the mature religious sentiment contin- ues to have a tremendous impact on theory and research in the psychology of religion. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a co~nprehensive and valid measure of reli- gious maturity derived explicitly from Allport's theory. To that end, two studies are reported documenting the develop~nent and initial validation of a new scale to mea- sure religious maturity based on Allport's theorking. Content validity is an often ig- nored but crucial step in the construct validation process. With this concern in mind, the content validity of the new scale was established prior to its use in Study 1. Next, Study 1 investigated the empirical validity of the new scale using a known-groups tnethodology, and subsequent analysis resulted in the develop~nent of arevised scale. Study 2 used a different population of participants as well as a different method of scale validation. The revised scale was used in Study 2, and it was found to be related to various indexes of religious maturity, as well as measures of diverse religious and personality constructs embedded within the theoretical framework of religious matu- rity. Whereas some weaknesses emerged, the evidence to date supports continued re- search with this new measure of religious maturity.