(PS7-C57) Relations Among Religious Affiliation, Religiosity, and Scrupulosity Symptoms

Research supports that religiosity is positively associated with scrupulosity—defined as moral or religious-themed obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Further, religious affiliation is related to both religiosity and scrupulosity, with Christians demonstrating higher levels of scrupulosity compared to other religious denominations (Abramowitz et al., 2002; Huppert & Fradkin, 2016). The current study extends the extant literature by examining religiosity and scrupulosity among three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism).

Participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Inclusion criteria consisted of being located in the United States, belonging to one of the three named religions, and having an MTurk approval rating > 95%. The final sample (N = 718) included qualified individuals who identified as Christian (n = 274), Muslim (n = 243), or Jewish (n = 201). Each participant completed a battery of questionnaires, including the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSRFQ; Plante & Boccaccini, 1997) and the revised Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS-R; Olatunji et al., 2007).

One-way ANOVAs tested relations among religious affiliation, SCSRFQ scores, and PIOS-R scores. SCSRFQ-assessed level of religiosity differed among the groups (Welch’s F_{(2, 427.389)} = 30.414, p < .001), with Muslim (M = 32.5, SD = 5.4) and Christian (M = 31.4, SD = 5.7) participants reporting significantly (ps < .001) higher scores than Jewish participants (M = 27.1, SD = 8.4). PIOS-R scrupulosity scores also differed among the three groups (Welch’s F_{(2, 451.527)} = 16.736, p < .001), with Muslim (M = 27.8, SD = 13.9) and Christian (M = 25.7, SD = 15.1) participants reporting significantly (ps < .001) higher scores than Jewish participants (M = 19.6, SD = 16.1). After controlling for SCSRFQ scores, there remained a significant difference in reported PIOS-R scores among the groups, F_{(2, 710)} = 17.630, p < .001. Muslim (M = 26.4, SE = .93) but not Christian (M = 25.0, SE = .87) participants reported significantly (p = .004) higher levels of scrupulosity than Jewish participants (M = 21.9, SE = 1.0).

Our results indicate that individuals who identify as Muslim may experience higher levels of scrupulosity symptoms than other groups—even after controlling for degree of religiosity. Previous studies have found higher levels of scrupulosity among Christians in comparison to other religious denominations, but typically have not included Muslim participants. These findings demonstrate the importance of including sufficiently large samples of traditionally underrepresented religious groups in research on scrupulosity and, whenever possible, not focusing on comparing only two groups. Next steps for future research include examining whether these findings are due to measurement considerations (e.g., if the instruments are not equally valid across different groups) or the mechanisms underlying potentially valid differences in scrupulosity among people representing diverse religious affiliations.