Religious Head Versus Heart Beliefs: Measurement Development and Validation

The notion of religious "head" versus "heart" beliefs is gaining currency, but almost no research has directly examined these dimensions together or studied their congruence/divergence and relative associations with thoughts, behaviors, or well-being. Validated measures of religious head and heart beliefs are needed to address this research gap. Toward that end, we conducted a series of four studies to develop a measure of religious head and heart beliefs. In Study 1, we tested methods for a self-report measure and created an initial item bank in a sample of 303 undergraduates. In Study 2, in a sample of 462 undergraduates, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis, deriving six separate scale scores based on previous measures of religious beliefs. In Study 3, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 530 adults, which replicated the factor structure found in Study 2. In Study 4, we examined associations between head:heart beliefs and demographics, personality, cognitive processes, and psychological well-being to demonstrate preliminary validity. Based on these findings, we propose a 26-item measure comprising 6 scales and provide preliminary evidence that head versus heart beliefs relate differently to various outcomes. These religious head:heart scales represent a promising advance in the study of religious beliefs and set the stage for a new wave of research to better understand how religious head and heart beliefs differ and what those differences mean.