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Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Correlates of Internalization of Regulations for Religious Activities

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Abstract

The main goal of this study was to examine the relationship between different types of extrinsic motivation for religious behaviors as conceptualised within self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and Wulff's (1991) framework of literal versus symbolic approaches of religious contents. Results from a Belgian sample of active believers (N=186) show that the internalization of one's reasons for performing religious behaviors was positively associated with an open, symbolic interpretation of religious belief contents and a stronger adherence to Christian beliefs. Moreover, internalization was also positively related to general well-being and frequency of prayer but unrelated to church attendance. It is concluded that individuals who engage in religious behaviors because of its perceived personal significance will show more cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness towards Christian belief contents, a stronger adherence to this message, higher well-being and more frequent engagement in specific religious behaviors.

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Notes

  1. Because the different kinds of regulations (i.e., intrinsic, identified, introjected, and external) are supposed to lie on one continuum of self-determination, the weights that are assigned to these regulations (i.e., +2, +1, −1, and −2, respectively) when creating a relative autonomy index in empirical research are balanced. Such a weighting procedure guarantees that the sum of the assigned weights is zero and that autonomous and controlled types of regulation are equally weighted in the creation of a relative autonomy index. Because principal component analysis in the present study yielded only three factors, we were forced to assign a stronger weight (i.e., +3) to identified regulation to make sure that the autonomous (i.e., identified) and controlled (i.e., introjected & external) regulations were equally weighted in creating the RII and that the sum of the weights would be zero. However, by assigning such a strong positive weight to identified regulation, the RII was strongly influenced by identified regulation. To overcome this problem, we created a new RII by assigning a weight of +2 to identified, −1 to introjected and −2 to external regulation. The results of this newly created RII stayed, however, virtually unchanged; the only changes were that this new RII index was marginally related with Satisfaction with Life (r=.13, p=.08)

  2. Because regression analyses on the separate well-being subscales essentially gave the same results, we only show the results using the well-being composite as dependent variable.

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Acknowledgement

The second and fifth author's contribution was supported by a grant of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen). The authors would like to thank Tom Rummens and Joëlle Verriest for their help in the data collection for this study.

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  1. Maarten Vansteenkiste

    Present address: Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000, Gent, Belgium

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, 3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Bart Neyrinck, Willy Lens, Bart Duriez & Dirk Hutsebaut

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  1. Bart Neyrinck
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Correspondence to Bart Neyrinck.

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Neyrinck, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Lens, W. et al. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Correlates of Internalization of Regulations for Religious Activities. Motiv Emot 30, 321–332 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-006-9048-3

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