Hi Kathleen
> Can anyone help? I'm starting to research the relationships between the
> strength of a person's convictions and other personality variables
> (particularly schizotypy), and I would welcome your advice on scales for
> measuring belief strength. The only one I've come across is the Rokeach
> Dogmatism Scale, which seems somewhat of its time and has also been
> criticised (e.g. by Krosnick for measuring acquiescence). There are
> scales which measure other aspects of belief, such as spirituality and
> political attitudes, and recommendations on which of these are best
> would be great too, but I'm really hoping you can tell me what is the
> best scale around that taps the same kind of domain as Rokeach did.
The only one I'm aware of is Rokeach's (1956) dogmatism scale. There is a
helpful review of its use in Hill & Hood's (1999) "Measures of
Religiosity", which I think the Experimental Psychology Dept at Oxford has
a copy of.
One alternative you might like to consider is Batson & Schoenhrade's
(1991) Quest scale, which may or may not be measuring whatever the
opposite of dogmatism is, something like openness to questionning and a
valuing of doubt. This is also reviewed in Hill & Hood.
Hope that's of some help.
Nicholas Gibson
PS I am intrigued -- is there research on dogmatism going on at the Oxford
Physiology dept? Who with and what on? (I did psychology and physiology as
an undergrad there, hence my interest.)
--
Psychology and Religion Research Programme
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge
West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9BS, UK
tel +44 (0)1223 763010 · fax +44 (0)1223 763003
http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/pcp/personnel/nicholas.html
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