Psychology Ph.D. Dissertations

A Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness: Evidence for Relevance, Reliability and Validity

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Psychology/Clinical

First Advisor

Kenneth Pargament

Abstract

The purpose of the current investigation was to further develop the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) that was constructed based on previous research and to assess its relevance, reliability and validity as a scientific tool for the study of the psychology of Islam. The sample consisted of 340 Muslim participants from all over the world who completed the online survey of the study.

Overall, the results were noteworthy in several respects. First, the PMIR was relevant to Muslim participants and suggested that Muslims adhere to different Islamic beliefs, adopt various Islamic religious attitudes, and observe a diverse array of Islamic religious practices. Second, Islam is multidimensional; factor analysis of the PMIR resulted in 6 factors (Islamic Beliefs, Islamic Ethical Principles & Universality, Islamic Religious Struggle, Islamic Religious Duty, Obligation & Exclusivism, Islamic Positive Religious Coping & Identification, and Punishing Allah Reappraisal) that possessed good to high internal consistency. The Islamic Religious Conversion subscale that was not subjected to factor analysis had a high internal consistency too. Finally, the subscales of the PMIR demonstrated discriminant, convergent, concurrent, and incremental validity.

These findings highlight the fact that Islam plays a central role in the well-being of Muslims and stress the need for paying more attention to the Islamic religion when dealing with Muslim populations. Other implications of these findings for theory, practice, and research, the limitations of the study, and directions for future research are discussed.

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