The Multidimensional Structure of the Quest Construct

The study of religious motivation has been an important area of research in the psychology of religion since Allport and Ross (1967) developed their measure of intrinsic/extrinsic religion. Batson (1976) expanded the model of religious motivation by proposing the quest construct and its measurement with the Interactional Scale. Two additional measures of quest were developed by Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1992) and Dudley and Cruise (1990). Questions have been raised about the reliability and validity of the quest construct and its measures. The present study investigates the dimensionality and convergence of three measures of quest using a sample of 1200 undergraduates from nine Christian liberal arts colleges. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified five quest dimensions. The correlations of the five quest dimensions with several measures of religious functioning and religious fundamentalism were examined. Differences across four college classes on the quest dimensions were also tested. The three quest measures converged on two dimensions labeled Belief Change Expected and Doubts Value. These dimensions were uncorrected with measures of God awareness and religious well-being and negatively correlated with religious fundamentalism. The three other dimensions identified were unique to one of the measures. The dimension regarding existential questions was not well sampled by our pool of items. The dimensions Reason versus Faith and Religion as Quest were correlated negatively with God awareness and religious well-being as well as religious fundamentalism. The quest dimensions of change and doubt are core facets of Batson's original formulation and our results validate these two dimensions of his model. Measurement of the questions dimension requires further development. The validity and utility of the other two dimensions as aspects of quest will require further investigation. The empirical study of religion as an important social and personal variable has been a viable, if somewhat less than mainstream, pursuit in psychology for several decades. Psychology of religion research increased substantially when Allport and Ross (1967) developed their measure of intrinsic (I) and extrinsic (E) motivation (the Religious Orientation Scale, ROS). The measure was based upon Gordon Ailport's (Ailport, 1950) conceptualization of mature versus immature religious motivation. Allport (1950) proposed his model distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as a way to understand the observed association between prejudice and religious belief. While the intrinsic and extrinsic constructs and the ROS measure have been subjected to extensive review and critique (Donahue, 1985; Gorsuch & McPherson, 1989; Kirkpatrick, 1988), the I/E model of religious motivation has proved to be useful (Kirkpatrick & Hood, 1990) for psychology of religion research. Batson and his colleagues (Batson, 1976; Batson & Ventis, 1982; Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993) provided another advance in psychology of religion with their proposal of a third dimension of religious motivation, which they called religion as Quest. They argued that the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) did not adequately measure all facets of Allport's original model of mature religion. Specifically, they suggested that the ROS excluded salient facets such as openness, flexibility, tentativeness, and doubt (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993). They argued that these facets were particularly important for understanding the relationship between religion and prejudice. The quest motivation describes individuals for whom religion is an on-going, open-minded exploration of existential questions, acceptance of the fact that many important religious questions do not have clear-cut answers, and a tentativeness of belief that remains open to change as one grows and develops. Batson & Ventis (1982) proposed a six-item measure of quest called the Interactional Scale (IS). …