Religiosity in 5-D: A Critical Note

The equivocation which may result from violation of natural language or face I validity is manifested in an article by Faulkner and DeJong (1966), "Religiosity in 5-D: An Empirical Analysis." The authors (1966:246-247) claim to be measuring and testing the associations among Glock's (1962) five dimensions of religiosity. They adequately refer to his dimensions as "experiential (feeling, emotion), ritualistic (religious behavior, i.e., church attendance), ideological (beliefs), intellectual (knowledge), and consequential (the effects in the secular world of the prior four dimensions)." The empirical "definition" of the dimensions, however, is given by the items used to measure them. It cannot be overemphasized that precisely at the juncture of the epistemic correlation, or the operationalization, the question of validity is not to be denied. The gap between stimulus and concept is one major arena for the sociology of social science.