Graduation Term

2014

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Eric D. Wesselmann

Abstract

Hood, Hill, and Williamson (2005) proposed a new way of defining religious fundamentalism - one based on the principle of intratextuality. The principle of intratextuality states that fundamentalists derive truth through interpreting their sacred text. The six attitudes proposed as extensions of the principle of intratextuality were divine, inerrant, self-interpretive, privileged, authoritative, and unchanging (Williamson, Hood, Ahmad, Sadiq, & Hill, 2010). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to develop the Intratextual Fundamentalism Scale (IFS). The authors sought a multidimensional model with the six attitudes as latent variables, using principal components extraction and a Varimax (orthogonal) rotation. The authors failed to obtain a multidimensional model, however, and settled with a 12-item, unidimensional model.

The current study reexamined the IFS, improving the factor analytic procedures used by Williamson et al. (2010), including increasing the number of items per factor, using different factor extraction and rotation methods, and determining sample size through a power analysis. An EFA resulted in a 36-item, two-factor model – two methodological factors representing positively and negatively worded items. Adding a general factor explaining religious fundamentalism to the two methodological factors was the best-fitting model tested through confirmatory factor analysis. For completeness, other plausible and theoretical models were tested, but the three-factor model fit the data better than the others, including the originally hypothesized six-factor model. Ultimately, the 36-item IFS model was similar to the 12-item IFS model presented in Williamson and Hood (2005) – a general factor representing religious fundamentalism in terms of the principle of intratextuality. The difference between the two models, however, was the presence of the two methodological factors, indicating a difference in response patterns between positively and negatively worded items. Regardless of what version of the IFS is used in the future, it is important that researchers account for the differing response patterns.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

http://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2014.Tuggle.R

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