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The Oxford English Dictionary defines religiosity as: "Religiousness; religious feeling or belief. ... Affected or excessive religiousness".. The earliest recorded usage of the former meaning is from 1382 Wycliffe's Bible, and of the latter is from 1799 by William Taylor quoted in John Warden Robberds' 1843 Memoir. Different scholars have seen this concept as broadly about religious orientations and degrees of involvement or commitment. The contrast between "religious" and "" (superficially religious) and the concept of "strengthening" faith
For example:
Scholars attempt to measure religiosity at the levels of individuals or groups, but differ as to what behaviors constitute religiosity. Sociologists of religion have observed that an individual's experience, , Belongingness, and general behavior often are not congruent with their religious behavior, since there is much diversity in how one can be religious or not. Problems arise in measuring religiosity. For instance, measures of variables such as church attendance produce different results when different methods are used, such as traditional surveys as opposed to .
Numerous studies have explored the different components of human religiosity.Brink, T.L. 1993. Religiosity: measurement. in Survey of Social Science: Psychology, Frank N. Magill, Ed., Pasadena, CA: Salem Press, 1993, pp. 2096–2102.Hill, Peter C. and Hood, Ralph W. Jr. 1999. Measures of Religiosity. Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press. What most have found (often using factor analysis) is that there are multiple dimensions. For instance, Marie Cornwall and colleagues identify six dimensions of religiosity based on the understanding that there are at least three components to religious behavior: knowing (cognition in the mind), feeling (effect to the spirit), and doing (behavior of the body). For each of these components of religiosity, there were two cross classifications, resulting in the six dimensions:
Sociologists have differed over the exact number of components of religiosity. Charles Glock's five-dimensional approach (Glock, 1972: 39) was among the first of its kind in the field of sociology of religion.Glock, C. Y. (1972). "On the Study of Religious Commitment" in J. E. Faulkner (ed.) Religion's Influence in Contemporary Society: Readings in the Sociology of Religion, Ohio: Charles E. Merril: 38–56. Other sociologists adapted Glock's list to include additional components (see for example, a six component measure by Mervin F. Verbit).Küçükcan, Talip. 2000. Can Religiosity Be Measured? Dimensions of Religious Commitment: Theories Revisited. Other researchers have found different dimensions, generally ranging from four to twelve components.
What most measures of religiosity find is that there is at least some distinction between religious doctrine, religious practice, and spirituality. Most dimensions of religiosity are correlated, meaning people who often attend church services (practice dimension) are also likely to score highly on the belief and spirituality dimensions. Nonetheless, an individual's scores on a measure of religiosity can vary between dimensions; they may not score high on all dimensions or low on all dimensions.
For example, an individual could accept truthfulness of the Bible (belief dimension), but never attend a church or even belong to an organized religion (practice dimension). Another example is an individual who did not accept orthodox Christian doctrines (belief dimension) but did attend a charismatic worship service (practice dimension) in order to develop his/her sense of oneness with the divine (spirituality dimension). A different individual might disavow all doctrines associated with organized religions (belief dimension), not affiliate with an organized religion or attend religious services (practice dimension), and at the same time be strongly committed to a higher power and feel that the connection with that higher power is ultimately relevant (spirituality dimension). These are explanatory examples of the broadest dimensions of religiosity and may not be reflected in specific religiosity measures.
Demographic studies often show a wide diversity of religious beliefs, belonging, and practices in both religious and non-religious populations. For instance, among Americans who are not religious and not seeking religion, 68% believe in God, 12% are atheists, 17% are agnostics. Also, 18% self-identify as religious, 37% self-identify as spiritual but not religious, and 42% self-identify as neither spiritual nor religious. Furthermore, 21% pray every day and 24% pray once a month. Global studies on religion also show diversity.
Decades of anthropological, sociological, and psychological research have established that the common assumption of "religious congruence" is rarely accurate. "Religious congruence" is the view that religious beliefs and values are tightly integrated in an individual's mind, or that religious practices and behaviors follow directly from religious beliefs, or that religious beliefs are chronologically linear and stable across different contexts. People's religious ideas are fragmented, loosely connected, and context-dependent, like their ideas in all other domains of culture and life. The beliefs, affiliations, and behaviors of any individual are complex activities that have many sources including culture. Mark Chaves gives the following examples of religious incongruence: "Observant Jews may not believe what they say in their Sabbath prayers. Christian ministers may not believe in God. And people who regularly dance for rain don't do it in the dry season."
The reliability of any poll results, in general and specifically on religion, can be questioned due numerous factors such as: (2025). 9780190258900, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190258900
Researchers also note that an estimated 20–40% of the population changes their self-reported religious affiliation/identity over time due to numerous factors and that usually it is their answers on surveys that change, not necessarily their religious practices or beliefs.
In general, polling numbers are difficult to interpret and should not be taken at face value, since people in different cultural contexts may interpret the same questions differently.Holifield, E. Brooks (2015). Why Are Americans So Religious? The Limitations of Market Explanations. Religion and the Marketplace in the United States. pp. 33–60. ISBN 9780199361809. "Such numbers cannot be taken at face value. They do not simply represent the world as it is but are self-representations. The difference between how Americans and citizens of other Western nations answer pollsters’ questions is first of all about how they think of themselves and how they want to be thought of in the context in which the question is asked. It means something different to say that one is “very religious” in Picayune, Mississippi, than it does in Oslo. Someone might have many reasons to answer yes to such a question, and it might be misleading to interpret the “yes” as having one simple meaning."
Responses to Gallup polls on religiosity vary based on how the question is worded. Since the early 2000s, Gallup has routinely asked about complex topics like belief in God using three different question wordings and they have consistently received three different percentages in the responses.
The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found a difference between how people identify and what people believe. While only 0.7% of U.S. adults identified as atheist, 2.3% said there is no such thing as a god. Only 0.9% identified as agnostic, but 10.0% said there is either no way to know if a god exists or they weren't sure. Another 12.1% said there is a higher power but no personal god. In total, only 15.0% identified as Nones or No Religion, but 24.4% did not believe in the traditional concept of a personal god. The conductors of the study concluded, "The historic reluctance of Americans to self-identify in this manner or use these terms seems to have diminished. Nevertheless ... the level of under-reporting of these theological labels is still significant ... many millions do not subscribe fully to the theology of the groups with which they identify."Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, , March 2009, American Religious Identification Survey ARIS, Trinity College.
According to a Pew Research Center study in 2009, only 5% of the total US population did not have a belief in a god. Out of all those without a belief in a god, only 24% self-identified as "atheist", while 15% self-identified as "agnostic", 35% self-identified as "nothing in particular", and 24% identified with a religious tradition.
Gallup's editor-in-chief, Frank Newport, argues that numbers on surveys may give an incomplete picture. In his view, declines in religious affiliation or belief in God on surveys may not actually reflect real declines, but instead increased honesty to interviewers on spiritual matters due to viewpoints previously seen as deviant becoming more socially acceptable.
Koenig and colleagues reported in a 2005 research paper that between adolescence and adulthood, the contribution of genes to variation in religiosity (called heritability) increases from 12% to 44% and the contribution of shared (family) effects decreases from 56% to 18%.
A market-based theory of religious choice and governmental regulation of religion have been the dominant theories used to explain variations of religiosity between societies. However, researchers Anthony Gill and Eric Lundsgaarde documented a much stronger correlation between welfare state spending and religiosity (see diagram).
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