Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RRF)

1. Abstract

The Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RRF), developed by Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger in 2004, is a psychometrically refined 12-item self-report inventory designed to assess individual adherence to religious fundamentalist ideology regardless of denominational affiliation. Originating from their foundational 20-item Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RFS) introduced in 1992, the revised instrument measures the belief that there is one set of religious teachings that clearly contains the fundamental, basic, intrinsic, essential, and inerrant truth about humanity and the deity; that this essential truth is opposed by forces of evil which must be vigorously resisted; and that this truth must be followed according to the unalterable practices of past tradition. The RRF employs a balanced item structure—comprising six contrait (pro-trait) items and six contrait-keyed (reverse-scored) items—to mitigate acquiescence bias. Responses are gathered on an asymmetrical 9-point Likert-type scale spanning from -4 (very strongly disagree) to +4 (very strongly agree), with 0 indicating precise neutrality, typically converted linearly to a 1-to-9 metric for composite scoring. Extensive empirical testing across diverse cultural, undergraduate, and community samples demonstrates exceptional internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha typically ranging from .89 to .93), robust unidimensional factor structure, high test-retest reliability, and pronounced construct validity. The RRF exhibits strong positive associations with Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), ethnocentrism, and outgroup prejudice, alongside predictable negative correlations with quest religious orientation, cognitive flexibility, and intellectual humility. The revised scale provides an efficient, theoretically robust, and cross-religiously applicable tool for social psychologists, sociologists of religion, and clinical researchers investigating ideological orthodoxy, dogmatism, intergroup hostility, and the psychosocial dimensions of religious belief.

2. Keywords

Religious Fundamentalism, Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale, RRF, Bob Altemeyer, Bruce Hunsberger, Right-Wing Authoritarianism, Dogmatism, Outgroup Prejudice, Psychometrics, Religious Orthodoxy, Cognitive Rigidity, Dualistic Thinking

3. Authors

The Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale was developed collaboratively by two prominent scholars in the psychology of religion and political psychology:

• Bob Altemeyer, Ph.D.: Associate Professor of Psychology (Emeritus) at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Dr. Altemeyer is globally recognized for his pioneering theoretical and empirical work on authoritarianism, culminating in the conceptualization and psychometric validation of the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Scale. His research has extensively examined authoritarian aggression, authoritarian submission, conventionalism, and prejudice.
• Bruce Hunsberger, Ph.D. (1946–2003): Professor and former Chair of the Department of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Hunsberger served as President of the Psychology of Religion Division (Division 36) of the American Psychological Association (APA) and was awarded the William James Award in 2001 for his lifetime contributions to the scientific study of religion. His research focused prominently on religious doubts, religious socialization, prejudice, and the interaction between fundamentalism and intergroup relations.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RRF) is to provide a concise, reliable, and construct-valid measure of the psychosocial orientation of religious fundamentalism that transcends specific theological creeds. In historical psychological literature, fundamentalism was frequently conflated with conventional religiosity, church attendance, or traditional denominational adherence. Furthermore, early assessment batteries suffered from significant confounds: they were heavily saturated with specific Christian theological terminology (e.g., explicit references to the virgin birth, Biblical inerrancy, or millennial eschatology), rendering them unusable or conceptually invalid when assessing fundamentalist orientations within Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or other non-Christian traditions. Altemeyer and Hunsberger sought to extract the underlying psychological core of fundamentalism—conceptualizing it not as a specific set of doctrinal contents, but as an overarching cognitive and motivational posture toward religious truth, authority, and existential reality.

The original 20-item scale published in 1992 achieved wide scholarly acclaim but presented practical limitations in survey research due to its length and the presence of minor psychometric redundancies. The authors formulated the 12-item revised scale in 2004 to create an ultra-efficient instrument that preserved or exceeded the psychometric integrity of the 20-item parent scale. The RRF retains a perfectly balanced format (six positively worded and six negatively worded items) to counteract acquiescence response sets, which are notoriously prevalent among highly authoritarian and fundamentalist populations.

In research contexts, the RRF is widely utilized in social psychology, political science, sociology, and peace studies. It functions as a potent predictor of social attitudes, including intergroup hostility, homophobia, racial prejudice, gender-role traditionalism, and resistance to scientific consensus on topics such as biological evolution and climate change. Clinically, the scale provides a framework for evaluating ideological rigidity, clinical perfectionism grounded in religious scrupulosity, and difficulties in cognitive restructuring during psychotherapy. By quantifying the degree to which an individual views their spiritual beliefs as the sole repository of absolute, unmodifiable cosmic truth, the RRF enables clinicians and researchers to delineate healthy, intrinsically motivated spiritual search from closed-minded, defensive dogmatism.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the RRF is Religious Fundamentalism, defined by Altemeyer and Hunsberger as the profound conviction that:

“…there is one set of religious teachings that clearly contains the fundamental, basic, intrinsic, essential, inerrant truth about humanity and the deity; that this essential truth is opposed by forces of evil which must be vigorously resisted; and that this truth must be followed today according to the fundamental, unchangeable practices of the past.” (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992, p. 118)

Although the RRF is structurally unidimensional, this overarching construct manifests across several core interrelated psychological facets:

1. Cosmic Inerrancy and Absolute Truth

At the center of fundamentalism is the belief in an ultimate, infallible source of divine knowledge. The fundamentalist mindset posits that sacred revelation provides exhaustive and immutable answers to existential questions. This dimension is exemplified by items asserting that a single religious teaching contains the bedrock, unfailing guide to human happiness and salvation (Item 1, Item 5), and is conversely rejected by items suggesting that scriptures are metaphorical, culturally conditioned, or subject to revision in light of scientific discoveries (Item 7, Item 10).

2. Exclusivism and Spiritual Superiority

The construct entails radical religious exclusivism: the belief that one’s own religious tradition represents the only valid connection to divine truth, while all other religious systems, philosophies, or secular viewpoints are fundamentally erroneous, corrupt, or deceptive. Item 8 (“To lead the best, most meaningful life, one must belong to the one, fundamentally true religion”) directly measures this exclusivist demarcation. Individuals scoring low on this construct endorse religious pluralism, epistemic fallibility, and the idea that all human institutions—including religions—are flawed (Item 12).

3. Cosmic Dualism and Manichaean Struggle

Fundamentalism constructs human existence as a dramatic battlefield between absolute cosmic good (God) and absolute cosmic evil (Satan or demonic forces). Evil is externalized and personified as an active, malignant entity orchestrating deception and moral decay. This cosmic dualism is reflected in Item 3 (“The basic cause of evil in this world is Satan…”) and contrasted by Item 9, which interprets Satan as a psychological metaphor for human impulses.

4. Boundary Maintenance and Anti-Relativism

Because divine truth is viewed as pure, pristine, and vulnerable to desecration, the fundamentalist individual exhibits intense vigilance against doctrinal dilution, theological syncretism, and cultural compromise. Item 11 explicitly captures this psychological boundary: “The fundamentals of God’s religion should never be tampered with, or compromised with others’ beliefs.” Moral relativism is categorically rejected; ethical behavior cannot be separated from orthodox belief and submission to divine dictates (Item 4).

5. Categorical Moral Bifurcation

The social world is perceived through rigid, binary categorizations. Humanity is split into two mutually exclusive, asymmetric moral groups: the righteous ingroup destined for divine reward and eternal salvation, versus the unrighteous outgroup facing divine condemnation (Item 6). This cognitive bifurcation eliminates nuance, ambiguity, and complex attributional processes regarding human behavior.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the RRF is deeply anchored in dual-process cognitive theories, social identity theory, and Altemeyer’s broader framework of authoritarian ideology. The development of the scale was directly motivated by theoretical debates surrounding the relationship between religion and prejudice.

The Religion-Prejudice Paradox and Allport’s Dual Orientations

Gordon Allport famously noted that religion “makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice.” In attempting to resolve this paradox, Allport and Ross (1967) differentiated between intrinsic religiosity (living one’s religion as an end in itself) and extrinsic religiosity (using religion as a means to social status, comfort, or belonging). Later, Batson introduced the Quest orientation, characterizing religion as an open-ended, questioning search for meaning that embraces complexity and doubt. However, empirical investigations routinely found that even intrinsically religious individuals exhibited prejudice against groups that violated traditional religious norms (e.g., homosexual individuals, ideological deviants). Altemeyer and Hunsberger argued that intrinsic religiosity failed to adequately capture the authoritarian, dogmatic core of religious belief that drives intergroup antipathy, necessitating a dedicated construct: religious fundamentalism.

Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Fundamentalism

Altemeyer conceptualized religious fundamentalism as the religious manifestation of Right-Wing Authoritarianism. While RWA measures three covariable attitudinal clusters in the political/social domain—authoritarian submission (deference to established societal authorities), authoritarian aggression (sanctioned hostility toward deviants), and conventionalism (adherence to traditional social norms)—the RRF captures these identical psychological dynamics within the spiritual domain. In the RRF, submission is directed toward the perceived ultimate deity and sacred texts; aggression is directed toward heretics, apostates, and evil forces; and conventionalism is framed as absolute adherence to historical scriptural orthodoxy. Empirically, RWA and RRF scores correlate exceptionally highly (frequently between .60 and .75), yet structural equation modeling confirms they remain conceptually and statistically distinct constructs.

Epistemic and Existential Motives

From a cognitive-motivational perspective, fundamentalism serves key psychological functions delineated by Need for Closure theory (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996) and Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1986). Fundamentalist belief systems provide epistemic certainty, eliminating existential ambiguity and cognitive dissonance. By positing an infallible, omnipotent protector and guaranteed salvation, fundamentalism serves as an existential buffer against death anxiety and societal instability. The theoretical premise underlying the RRF is that individuals gravitate toward fundamentalism not merely due to doctrinal exposure, but because of a cognitive style characterized by categorical thinking, low integrative complexity, and heightened threat reactivity.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale has been rigorously corroborated across dozens of empirical investigations involving Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu cohorts.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is evidenced by substantial, theory-consistent correlations with established psychometric inventories:

• Right-Wing Authoritarianism: Altemeyer and Hunsberger (2004) reported correlations ranging from r = .68 to .78 across multiple college and parent samples, demonstrating strong conceptual convergence while confirming that the two scales share roughly 50% unique variance.
• Religious Orthodoxy and Intrinsic Religiosity: The RRF correlates robustly with measures of Christian Orthodoxy (typically r = .70 to .82) and Intrinsic Religious Orientation (r = .55 to .70). Fundamentalists internalize their faith deeply, yet the RRF uniquely predicts variance in dogmatism and outgroup hostility above and beyond general intrinsic devotion.
• Dogmatism and Need for Closure: Significant positive correlations have been consistently documented with Rokeach’s Dogmatism Scale (r = .45 to .60) and Webster and Kruglanski’s Need for Cognitive Closure Scale, specifically the preference for order and predictability subscales.

Discriminant Validity

The RRF demonstrates excellent discriminant validity against constructs reflecting intellectual openness, religious flexibility, and social desirability:

• Quest Religious Orientation: The RRF exhibits strong, statistically significant negative correlations with Batson’s Quest scale (ranging from r = -.40 to -.62), confirming that fundamentalism directly opposes an orientation toward doubt, complexity, and open-ended exploration.
• Intellectual Humility and Openness to Experience: In Big Five personality assessments, the RRF consistently displays negative associations with Openness to Experience (r = -.25 to -.42), while showing negligible or non-significant correlations with Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
• Acquiescence Bias: Due to its precisely balanced 6-pro-trait and 6-con-trait item composition, correlation matrices between positively worded and negatively worded items demonstrate that the scale measures the targeted construct rather than an indiscriminate tendency to agree with authoritative assertions.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

The predictive utility of the RRF has been demonstrated across diverse social and clinical settings. In the validation study by Altemeyer and Hunsberger (2004), the 12-item RRF predicted generalized prejudice toward racial, ethnic, and religious minorities (e.g., Jews, Muslims, non-believers) as strongly as the original 20-item scale (multiple Rs exceeding .50). In subsequent investigations (e.g., Hester, 2012), the RRF demonstrated potent predictive power in explaining hostile attitudes toward sexual minorities, resistance to civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ populations, opposition to stem-cell research, rejection of biological evolutionary science, and endorsement of punitive criminal justice sanctions.

8. Reliability

The Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale consistently demonstrates exceptional internal consistency and temporal stability despite its abbreviated 12-item length.

Internal Consistency

In the initial psychometric evaluation conducted by Altemeyer and Hunsberger (2004), the RRF achieved the following Cronbach’s alpha coefficients:

• Undergraduate Student Sample (N = 442): Cronbach’s α = .92
• Parent/Adult Community Sample (N = 349): Cronbach’s α = .93

Subsequent independent replications have confirmed that the internal reliability of the RRF remains consistently between .89 and .94 across varying demographics. For instance, in Hester’s (2012) study examining religious anti-gay messages, the RRF demonstrated a Cronbach’s alpha of .91. Corrected item-total correlations across published studies are uniformly high, typically ranging between .52 and .78 for all 12 items, demonstrating that both the positively worded and reverse-scored items contribute robustly to total score variance.

Test-Retest Reliability and Temporal Stability

Longitudinal assessments of the RRF indicate high stability over time among adult populations, reflecting its conceptualization as an enduring ideological orientation rather than a transient state. Test-retest reliability coefficients over intervals of four to twelve weeks generally exceed r = .85. Minor developmental fluctuations have been observed during emerging adulthood (e.g., during the initial years of university education), where exposure to diverse socio-religious viewpoints occasionally results in slight downward mean shifts, yet the rank-order stability of participants remains remarkably stable.

9. Factor Analysis

A central psychometric objective during the transition from the original 20-item scale to the 12-item revised scale was ensuring an unequivocal, robust unidimensional latent structure while maintaining balance against acquiescence.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal Axis Factoring and Principal Components Analysis with both orthogonal (Varimax) and oblique (Promax) rotations consistently demonstrate that a single dominant factor accounts for the vast majority of common variance. In Altemeyer and Hunsberger’s (2004) factor analyses, the first unrotated factor accounted for over 50% to 58% of the total variance, with an eigenvalue typically exceeding 6.0. Subsequent eigenvalues drop sharply below 1.0 (scree plot analysis reveals a clear “elbow” after the first factor), confirming essential unidimensionality. Factor loadings for all 12 items on this primary dimension are exceptionally high and uniform, typically clustering between .55 and .84 across both pro-trait and con-trait items.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations across international samples support the one-factor model, provided that methodological artifacts related to item wording (method effects) are appropriately modeled. When testing a strict single-factor model without correlated uniqueness, goodness-of-fit indices sometimes fall slightly below conventional thresholds due to minor residual covariances among the reverse-scored items. However, when specifying a bifactor model or allowing correlated residuals among the negatively phrased items (a standard psychometric phenomenon reflecting wording technique rather than distinct substantive dimensions), the model exhibits excellent fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .96
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): ≤ .055 (90% CI [.042, .068])
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .038

Multi-group CFA studies assessing measurement invariance across gender and different religious traditions (e.g., comparing Christian, Jewish, and Muslim respondents) have confirmed metric and scalar invariance, demonstrating that the RRF measures the latent fundamentalism construct on an equivalent metric across distinct groups.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale (RRF) is a structured, 12-item psychometric inventory. Key structural and administrative characteristics include:

• Test Type: Self-report psychometric inventory / attitudinal survey.
• Format: Available in paper-and-pencil, computer-administered, and mobile digital formats.
• Item Count: 12 items (6 contrait/pro-trait items; 6 contrait-keyed/reverse-scored items).
• Response Format: An asymmetric 9-point Likert-type scale ranging from -4 to +4, with 0 serving as a precise neutral point:
• -4 = Very strongly disagree
• -3 = Strongly disagree
• -2 = Moderately disagree
• -1 = Slightly disagree
• 0 = Exactly and precisely neutral
• +1 = Slightly agree
• +2 = Moderately agree
• +3 = Strongly agree
• +4 = Very strongly agree
• Data Recoding and Scoring Procedure:
  1. Linear Conversion: Convert the original -4 to +4 responses to a 1 to 9 scale by adding 5 to each score:
     (-4 = 1; -3 = 2; -2 = 3; -1 = 4; 0 = 5; +1 = 6; +2 = 7; +3 = 8; +4 = 9).
  2. Reverse-Coding: Invert the values of the 6 con-trait items (Items 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, and 12) using the formula:
     $$\text{Recoded Score} = 10 – \text{Converted Score}$$
     (e.g., a converted score of 9 becomes 1; 8 becomes 2; 1 becomes 9).
  3. Positively Scored Items: Retain direct converted values for Items 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 11.
  4. Total Score Calculation: Sum the 12 item values. Possible raw total scores range from 12 to 108 (or an average item mean score ranging from 1.0 to 9.0). Higher scores denote greater adherence to religious fundamentalism.
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Revised Religious Fundamentalism Scale was officially published in 2004 in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, refining the original 1992 instrument. In accordance with the open-science ethos championed by Dr. Bob Altemeyer and the late Dr. Bruce Hunsberger, the scale is in the public domain for non-commercial, scholarly, educational, and clinical research purposes. Researchers and practitioners are permitted to administer the scale without licensing fees or formal written permission, provided that full academic citation and attribution are given to the original authors. For large-scale commercial applications or incorporation into for-profit assessment platforms, standard copyright considerations regarding the original journal publisher (Taylor & Francis) may apply.

12. References

• Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (1992). Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 2(2), 113–133. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr0202_5
• Altemeyer, B., & Hunsberger, B. (2004). A revised religious fundamentalism scale: The short and sweet of it. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(1), 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr1401_4
• 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., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective. Oxford University Press.
• Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10
• Hester, N. (2012). Religious anti-gay messages’ effect on attitudes toward sexual and religious groups (Master’s thesis, Texas Tech University). Texas Tech University Libraries Repository. https://repositories.tdl.org/ttu-ir/handle/2346/45412
• Hunsberger, B. (1995). Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamentalism, quest, and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 51(2), 113–129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01326.x
• Kruglanski, A. W., & Webster, D. M. (1996). Motivated closing of the mind: “Seizing” and “freezing.” Psychological Review, 103(2), 263–283. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.103.2.263
• Laythe, B., Finkel, D. G., Bringle, R. G., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2002). Religious fundamentalism as a predictor of prejudice: A two-component model. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(4), 623–635. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5906.00142

13. Items of the Scale