How to measure Baha’i religiosity: The CRSi-20 for Baha’is as a first reliable and valid measurement

Demmrich, Sarah

Research article (journal) | Peer reviewed

Abstract

The concepts and measurements in psychology of religion often adhere to its Judeo-Christianroots, which causes problems when measuring non-Christian religiosity. In this paper, two successivestudies are presented. The first study applied Huber's CRS-15, while the second study used theCRSi-20. Both samples consisted of believers of the non-Christian, Abrahamic Baha'i religion inGermany. In the first study, in which N = 472 participated (MAge = 43.22, SDAge = 15.59, 60.0% female),the reliability and validity issues related to items of public practice and experience of the CRS-15 wereuncovered. After modifying the content of these items and adding the five additional items of theinterreligious CRSi-20, which was tested among N = 324 participants (MAge = 47.12, SDAge = 17.06,59.6% female) in a second study, most reliability issues were solved. Confirmatory factor analysesrevealed that the CRSi-20 model describes the data appropriately with adequate fit indices. Therefore,the CRSi-20 for Baha'is o ers the first reliable and valid measurements of Baha'i religiosity, beingat the same time capable of taking the emic perspective fully into account while maintaining thepossibility of cross-religious comparisons.