Perceived Religious Motivation

Research in perceived religious motivations is generally based upon Allport's intrinsic-extrinsic distinction. However, this approach never searched for multiple religious motivations and was developed within a North American Protestant para- digm. Theoretically, multiple religious motivations are expected that should transfer across religions and across cultures. To sample possible religious motivations, college students in a religiously and culturally pluralistic setting developed items representing religious motivations that they had perceived. This resulted in 5 new religious motivations. To test for transfer, the intrinsic-extrinsic and the 5 new religious motivations were compared between (a) English-speaking Christians and Asian Christians and between (b) Asian Christians and Asian non-Christians. The patterns of reliabilities and correlations among motivations were found to be reasonably replicable across cultures and religions. The correlations suggest that religious motivations are mutually enha...