Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale Personal Form

Abstract

The Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale Personal Form (IPS-P) is a specialized psychometric instrument developed by Kenneth I. Pargament and colleagues (1987) to assess an uncritical, overly positive, and defensive orientation toward one’s personal religious thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Originating from the psychometric need to evaluate whether elevated scores on self-report measures of intrinsic religiousness reflect authentic spiritual commitment or rather a specialized manifestation of social desirability bias, the IPS-P isolates personal-level defensive reporting. Comprising 12 dichotomously scored (True/False) items, the scale specifically contrasts extreme, universally positive self-attributions regarding religious experiences against universally human lapses, doubts, and fluctuations in devotion. Psychometric evaluations across diverse religious congregations and university cohorts demonstrate acceptable internal consistency, with Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR-20) and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging between .72 and .82. Factor analytic investigations confirm an essentially unidimensional defensive response set characterized by two mutually reinforcing poles: the endorsement of idealized religious conduct and the denial of normative spiritual hesitation or disinterest. The instrument has proven indispensable in clinical psychology of religion, health psychology, and empirical sociology, where controlling for indiscriminate proreligious bias is necessary to prevent spurious inflations of correlations between religious devotion, psychological well-being, and adaptive coping mechanisms.

Keywords

Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale, IPS-P, Kenneth I. Pargament, religious social desirability, intrinsic religiousness, self-deception, impression management, religious coping, spiritual doubts, psychometrics

Authors

The Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form was conceptualized, operationalized, and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team based at Bowling Green State University:

• Kenneth I. Pargament, Ph.D. – Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA. A foundational figure in the empirical study of religion, spirituality, and stress-coping theory.
• Michael T. Brannick, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University (currently Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida). Specializes in quantitative methods, measurement theory, and organizational psychology.
• H. Adamakos, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.
• David S. Ensing, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University (later faculty at University of North Carolina at Charlotte).
• M. L. Kelemen, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.
• R. K. Warren, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.
• K. Falgout, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.
• P. Cook, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.
• J. Myers, M.A. – Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form (IPS-P) is to detect, quantify, and control for a systemic response bias within empirical religious research: the tendency of certain respondents to endorse any and all positive statements concerning their personal faith while resolutely denying common, normative religious vulnerabilities. In the late 20th century, the psychology of religion was plagued by persistent questions regarding the construct validity of foundational inventories, most notably Gordon Allport and J. Michael Ross’s Religious Orientation Scale (ROS). Researchers repeatedly documented that intrinsic religiousness correlated positively with various self-report measures of mental health, emotional adjustment, and prosocial attitudes. However, critics argued that these associations might simply be methodological artifacts created by acquiescence, social desirability, or uncritical halo effects.

Pargament and his colleagues recognized that standard social desirability scales, such as the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, assess secular interpersonal propriety (e.g., admitting whether one gossips or drives carefully) and frequently exhibit modest or null correlations with religious measures. The Marlowe-Crowne scale was not designed to capture domain-specific defensive posturing within theological and ecclesiastical environments. To rectify this psychometric blind spot, Pargament et al. (1987) operationalized indiscriminate proreligiousness as a domain-tailored response bias. They constructed two distinct instruments: a General Form (IPS-G), assessing idealized views toward the church and institutional religion in general, and the Personal Form (IPS-P), targeting the respondent’s own subjective spiritual existence.

The IPS-P fulfills critical functions across clinical, empirical, and institutional contexts:

• Suppressor and Covariate Modeling: In epidemiological and psychological studies, the IPS-P is employed as a statistical covariate to partial out defensive variance, allowing investigators to observe the unconfounded relationship between genuine religious commitment and indices of depression, anxiety, physical health, or cognitive functioning.
• Construct Refinement: The scale enables researchers to segment religious populations into individuals whose high scores reflect authentic, reflective devotion versus those whose scores reflect rigid, self-protective, or dogmatic posturing.
• Clinical Assessment: In pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, and faith-integrated psychotherapy, high scores on the IPS-P signal underlying perfectionism, spiritual shame, defensive repression of doubt, or cognitive rigidity that can obstruct therapeutic alliance and psychological development.

Psychological Construct

The construct measured by the IPS-P is Indiscriminate Proreligiousness (Personal), conceptualized as an unreflective, evaluative bias characterized by the non-contingent endorsement of positive self-referent religious assertions alongside the systematic disavowal of universal human limitations in spiritual commitment. Rather than reflecting mature, nuanced faith, the construct represents a rigid, black-and-white response set regarding one’s inner religious reality.

The construct operationalized within the IPS-P contains two complementary psychometric poles that function in tandem:

1. The Affirmation of Absolute Spiritual Perfection

This facet involves asserting uncompromised fidelity, emotional satisfaction, and moral execution in religious life. The respondent claims that religious practices invariably achieve their idealized potential without exception or decay over time. In the IPS-P, this manifests in statements employing absolute qualifiers such as “always”, “never”, or “every one”. For example:

• Endorsing that religious services always provide novel theological insights regardless of context, preacher, or personal receptivity (Item 1).
• Asserting that one is always inspired by sermon topics without variation (Item 2).
• Claiming that prayer always yields emotional tranquility and inner peace (Item 9).
• Affirming that religious doctrine guides every single daily action (Item 7) and that one never disobeys religious tenets (Item 11).

From a psychological standpoint, human behavior, attention, and affective states fluctuate across time and situations. The claim of unwavering, continuous religious perfection indicates either conscious impression management or unconscious self-deceptive enhancement.

2. The Denial of Normative Human Frailties and Skepticism

The second facet of the construct entails the systematic refusal to acknowledge normative, ubiquitous cognitive and motivational lapses within spiritual practice. Sociological and developmental models of faith recognize that periods of cognitive doubt, motivational fatigue, inattention, and self-centered lapse are integral components of human cognitive architecture. The IPS-P measures the denial of these realities through items where admitting the behavior represents normative human limitation, while denying it suggests defensive distortion:

• Denying ever having experienced lapses in attention or daydreaming during worship services (Item 3).
• Denying ever having entertained doubts about the existence of God (Item 5).
• Denying ever feeling reluctance or lack of desire to attend religious services (Item 8).
• Denying that religious teachings ever feel excessively demanding or burdensome (Item 10).
• Denying that during prosperous times one ever neglects to express gratitude to the divine (Item 12).

Indiscriminate proreligiousness is thus distinct from substantive religious belief. An individual can possess profound, orthodox faith while recognizing their occasional lapses, spiritual dry spells, or struggles. Conversely, an individual scoring high on the IPS-P exhibits a cognitive style wherein religious identity is defended against any acknowledgement of vulnerability, ambivalence, or imperfection.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework underpinning the IPS-P intersects Gordon Allport’s personality-rooted religious orientation theory, modern models of response bias (Delroy L. Paulhus), and cognitive-appraisal theories of religious coping developed by Kenneth Pargament.

Allport’s Paradox and the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Continuum

When Gordon Allport formulated the dichotomy between intrinsic and extrinsic religion, he envisioned intrinsic religion as mature, unselfish, and master-motivating (“living one’s religion”), in contrast to an extrinsic orientation that uses religion as an instrumental tool for social status or personal solace. However, Allport himself observed anomalies in empirical data: individuals scoring exceptionally high on intrinsic scales frequently displayed an indiscriminate willingness to agree with any favorable statement about religion, even when logically improbable. Allport referred to this phenomenon as “indiscriminate proreligiousness” and noted that it was particularly pronounced among individuals who lacked cognitive differentiation.

Later psychometricians, including C. Daniel Batson (who proposed the Quest orientation to account for open-ended, complex questioning), maintained that standard intrinsic scales measured devout self-righteousness or defensive orthodoxy rather than mature faith. Pargament et al. (1987) formalized this critique into an empirical model: indiscriminate proreligiousness represents a dedicated cognitive-evaluative filter through which the self-system protects its perceived righteousness and moral standing.

Paulhus’s Two-Component Model of Social Desirability

Within contemporary psychometrics, social desirability bias is separated into two primary mechanisms: Impression Management (deliberate falsification to project a favorable external facade) and Self-Deceptive Enhancement (an honest, deeply held, yet exaggerated belief in one’s own positive qualities). The IPS-P captures both dimensions within the religious domain:

• Impression Management: In conservative or tight-knit faith communities, social standing and relational belonging are predicated on spiritual fidelity. Acknowledging that one daydreams in church, doubts God, or finds commandments burdensome risks communal censure or moral delegitimization.
• Self-Deceptive Denial: For individuals whose entire core identity is anchored in faith, recognizing internal ambivalence, spiritual apathy, or religious doubts induces acute cognitive dissonance. To preserve identity consistency and emotional equilibrium, the cognitive schema automatically represses or reframes any awareness of human frailty.

The Logic of Lie and Defensiveness Scales

The psychometric architecture of the IPS-P is directly derived from classic validation inventories, notably the L (Lie) scale and K (Defensiveness) scale of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Crowne-Marlowe paradigm. The foundational principle of these instruments states that certain minor human flaws and lapses are virtually universal across populations. Consequently, claiming total exemption from these universal tendencies does not demonstrate actual perfection, but rather points to an extreme defensive reporting set.

Validity

The validity of the Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form has been verified across clinical, collegiate, and community-based denominational cohorts through rigorous psychometric testing.

Construct and Factorial Validity

In their seminal validation study, Pargament et al. (1987) examined multiple adult samples comprising diverse Christian denominations (e.g., Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran). Exploratory factor analyses revealed that the IPS-P loaded heavily on a single overarching factor distinct from substantive theological beliefs, institutional involvement, or secular psychological distress. While the General Form (IPS-G) captured idealization of the institutional church, the Personal Form (IPS-P) demonstrated specific construct validity by uniquely isolating idealized personal religious conduct.

Convergent Validity

The IPS-P exhibits statistically significant, moderate-to-high positive correlations with existing scales measuring religious devoutness, while also revealing substantial shared variance with religious defensiveness:

• Intrinsic Religious Orientation: Correlations between the IPS-P and Allport-Ross Intrinsic scales typically range from r = .50 to .71 (p < .001). This confirms that intrinsic measures are substantially saturated with personal indiscriminate proreligiousness, demonstrating the necessity of the IPS-P as a control variable.
• General Proreligiousness (IPS-G): The IPS-P correlates strongly with the IPS General Form (r ≈ .60 to .75), validating that both forms reflect an uncritical religious stance, while maintaining distinct variance corresponding to the personal versus institutional levels of appraisal.
• Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS): The IPS-P demonstrates low-to-moderate positive correlations with the MCSDS (typically r = .20 to .35). The fact that this correlation is modest confirms that the IPS-P is not a redundant replicate of general secular social desirability, but measures a specialized, domain-specific form of religious impression management and self-deception.

Discriminant Validity

The discriminant validity of the IPS-P is supported by predictable negative or null relationships with contrasting constructs:

• Quest Orientation (Batson): The IPS-P correlates negatively with Batson’s Quest scale (r values typically ranging between -.25 and -.45). Individuals who embrace religious complexity, existential questioning, and tentative beliefs score markedly lower on indiscriminate proreligiousness, as their religious worldview explicitly acknowledges doubt and cognitive tension.
• Extrinsic Religious Orientation: Correlations with extrinsic-social and extrinsic-personal scales are generally weak or non-significant (r = -.10 to .15), demonstrating that the scale does not merely measure utilitarian religious attendance.
• Religious Conflict and Spiritual Struggles: The IPS-P demonstrates strong inverse associations with measures of reported spiritual struggle (such as divine anger, religious doubt, and demonic dread), confirming that high scorers actively suppress or deny the existence of intrapsychic religious conflict.

Predictive and Incremental Validity

When researchers partial out IPS-P scores from correlations between intrinsic religiousness and indices of mental health (e.g., self-esteem, life satisfaction, absence of anxiety), the observed positive relationships are frequently attenuated. For instance, initial positive correlations between uncritical intrinsic faith and self-esteem drop noticeably once indiscriminate proreligiousness is statistically controlled. This empirical pattern demonstrates that a measurable portion of the psychological “well-being” reported by highly religious respondents stems from defensive denial and self-deceptive enhancement rather than actual psychological resilience.

Reliability

The IPS-P demonstrates satisfactory to strong reliability indices across multiple research settings, demographic cross-sections, and study designs:

Internal Consistency

Because the scale utilizes a dichotomous (True/False) response format, internal consistency has historically been calculated using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) alongside Cronbach’s coefficient alpha:

• In the original psychometric validation by Pargament et al. (1987), internal consistency coefficients for the 12-item IPS-P across church member samples yielded values between .75 and .82.
• In subsequent undergraduate collegiate samples and community cohorts, alpha coefficients have consistently replicated within the .71 to .80 interval.
• Mean inter-item correlations generally cluster between .18 and .28, which is considered optimal for broad personality and response-bias inventories; it ensures adequate construct breadth without excessive item redundancy.

Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

Test-retest stability assessments over intervals ranging from four to eight weeks indicate robust stability, with test-retest correlation coefficients (r) exceeding .78 to .84. This indicates that indiscriminate proreligiousness on a personal level functions as a relatively stable cognitive trait and response style rather than an ephemeral, situationally induced mood state.

Factor Analysis

The factorial structure of the Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form has been scrutinized through both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Structure

In early principal axis and principal components analyses with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations, the 12 items consistently produce a strong primary factor that accounts for the majority of the common variance. Eigenvalue scree plots demonstrate a distinct drop-off after the first extraction, supporting the operationalization of the scale as an essentially unidimensional measure of personal proreligious defensiveness.

When a two-factor solution is extracted, the items divide cleanly according to item keying direction rather than conceptual divergence:

• Factor 1: Absolute Devotion / Spiritual Perfection (Positively Keyed Items): Items 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 11 load heavily onto this factor (loadings typically ranging from .45 to .72). These items require the respondent to affirm absolute spiritual alignment (e.g., “Religious services always give me new insight into my beliefs”, “I never disobey the teachings of my faith”).
• Factor 2: Denial of Vulnerability / Human Lapses (Reverse-Keyed Items): Items 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12 load onto this secondary factor (loadings typically ranging from .40 to .68). These items require the respondent to acknowledge normal human frailty (e.g., “Sometimes I daydream during services”, “There have been times when I doubted the existence of God”).

Because Factor 1 and Factor 2 correlate substantially (typically r > .50) and represent the positive and negative ends of the same defensive appraisal spectrum, psychometricians recommend maintaining the total unidimensional score.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Fit Indices

In modern confirmatory investigations, a single-factor model with correlated error terms between similarly worded items (or a bifactor model featuring one general Indiscriminate Proreligiousness factor alongside two method factors for positive and negative item phrasing) provides strong fit to empirical data:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) ≥ .92 – .95
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) ≥ .90 – .94
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .045 – .060
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) ≤ .050

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural characteristics, administration requirements, and scoring algorithms for the Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form (IPS-P)
• Primary Developer: Kenneth I. Pargament, Ph.D., et al. (1987)
• Construct Assessed: Uncritical, defensive, and socially desirable self-presentation regarding personal religious behaviors, cognitions, and affective experiences
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or secure computer-based survey
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (ages 16 and older) who identify with a religious tradition or attend religious services
• Item Count: 12 items
• Response Format: Dichotomous forced-choice (True or False)
• Completion Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes
• Scoring Architecture:
  • The scale produces a single composite score ranging from 0 to 12.
  • Higher total scores indicate greater indiscriminate proreligiousness, defensiveness, and uncritical idealization of personal faith.
  • Positively Keyed Items (Keyed “True” = 1 point, “False” = 0 points):
    • Item 1: Religious services always give me new insight into my beliefs.
    • Item 2: I am always inspired by the sermon topics.
    • Item 4: I always try to use the message of the weekly sermon in me daily life.
    • Item 6: I always live by my religious beliefs.
    • Item 7: My religious beliefs guide me in every one of my daily actions.
    • Item 9: Praying always brings me inner peace.
    • Item 11: I never disobey the teachings of my faith.
  • Reverse-Keyed Items (Keyed “False” = 1 point, “True” = 0 points):
    • Item 3: Sometimes I daydream during services.
    • Item 5: There have been times when I doubted the existence of God.
    • Item 8: There are times when I do not feel like going to church.
    • Item 10: Sometimes I feel that the teachings of my religion ask too much of me.
    • Item 12: When things are going well for me, I sometimes forget to thank God.
• Interpretation Guidelines:
  • Low Scores (0 – 4): Indicates candid, non-defensive reporting. The respondent openly acknowledges normal human lapses, fluctuations in attention, spiritual doubts, and motivational hesitations.
  • Moderate Scores (5 – 8): Represents typical reporting within devout communities. Balances religious enthusiasm with occasional recognition of personal imperfections.
  • Elevated Scores (9 – 12): Strongly suggests indiscriminate proreligiousness, defensive posturing, rigid perfectionism, or significant social desirability bias. Substantive scores on other religious, coping, or well-being measures should be interpreted with caution or adjusted statistically.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Indiscriminate Proreligiousness Scale – Personal Form was originally published in 1987 in the peer-reviewed journal Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Volume 26, Issue 2, pages 182–200). The copyright for the original article belongs to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), currently published in partnership with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The instrument was placed in the public scientific domain for scholarly research and educational evaluation by the authors. Researchers and clinical professionals may use, reproduce, and administer the IPS-P without paying royalty fees, provided that appropriate academic attribution and citation are given to Pargament et al. (1987). Commercial deployment, inclusion within for-profit diagnostic software batteries, or mass commercial republication requires explicit written licensing permission from the copyright holder and the primary author.

References

• Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021212
• Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P. A., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195062083.001.0001
• Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24(4), 349–354. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047358
• Pargament, K. I., Brannick, M. T., Adamakos, H., Ensing, D. S., Kelemen, M. L., Warren, R. K., Falgout, K., Cook, P., & Myers, J. (1987). Indiscriminant proreligiousness: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 26(2), 182–200. https://doi.org/10.2307/1386508
• Pargament, K. I. (1997). The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice. Guilford Press.
• Paulhus, D. L. (1984). Two-component models of socially desirable responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46(3), 598–609. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.598
• Watson, P. J., Morris, R. J., Foster, J. E., & Hood, R. W. (1986). Religiosity and social desirability. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 25(2), 215–232. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385478

Items of the Scale