The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale<\/strong> is a specialized psychometric assessment instrument developed by social psychologists<\/a> Leonard H. Seyfarth, Knud S. Larsen, K. Lamont, C. Haasch, T. Hale, and D. Haskin in 1984. The instrument was engineered to systematically assess an individual’s psychological openness, receptivity, and evaluative posture toward the public and personal rights of religious groups to engage in evangelistic activities. Grounded in the socioreligious definition of evangelism<\/a> as the strategic employment of religious ideology through direct, intensive contacts with prospective converts, the measure operationalizes attitudes across two primary empirical dimensions: the public proclamation of religious faith (e.g., street preaching, media broadcast, public witnessing) and direct personal visitation (e.g., door-to-door solicitation, individualized proselytization).<\/p>\n The finalized scale comprises 21 items administered using a five-point Likert-type response format<\/a>, spanning from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). The measure contains seven reverse-scored items calibrated to minimize acquiescence response bias. Developed through a rigorous criterion-referenced item-selection methodology from an initial pool of 80 potential items, the scale demonstrated substantial discriminative capacity by isolating statements that maximalized variance between the highest and lowest scoring deciles of an introductory psychology sample at Oregon State University.<\/p>\n Exploratory factor analysis conducted during initial scale validation revealed a multidimensional structural configuration capturing four distinct empirical components: Factor I (Respect for the courage to stand up for one’s beliefs), Factor II (Interpersonal approach), Factor III (Attitudes toward ideological conformity and spatial zoning restrictions), and Factor IV (Public-domain proselytization sensitivity). The scale demonstrates excellent internal reliability, boasting an uncorrected split-half reliability coefficient of .83 and a Spearman-Brown corrected reliability coefficient of .91. Construct validity is robustly supported via a strong positive correlation (r<\/em> = .76) with Putney and Middleton’s Fanaticism scale, as well as significant known-groups validity differentiating individuals by religious tradition, personal religious activity, and denominational outreach orientation. This article provides a comprehensive psychometric review of the instrument, delineating its historical development, theoretical foundations, latent structure, administration protocols, and evaluative utility within contemporary psychology of religion<\/a> and sociological research<\/span>.<\/p>\n Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale, evangelism measurement, religious proselytization, psychology of religion, religious outreach, religious conversion attitudes, religious tolerance, social psychology of religion, religious fanaticism, religious privacy rights<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and empirically validated by a collaborative research team led by Leonard H. Seyfarth and Knud S. Larsen at Oregon State University:<\/p>\n Correspondence regarding the foundational validation studies of the instrument was originally addressed through the Department of Psychology at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, United States.<\/p>\n The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale is to provide an objective, standardized, and psychometrically validated measurement of individual differences in attitudes toward the public and private promulgation of religious beliefs. Religious outreach activities\u2014ranging from door-to-door proselytization to street-level witnessing and televised evangelistic campaigns\u2014frequently elicit intense socio-emotional reactions that intersect with fundamental concerns regarding freedom of speech, individual rights to privacy, religious freedom, and perceived ideological coercion. Prior to the development of this instrument by Seyfarth and colleagues in 1984, researchers in the sociology of religion<\/a> and social psychology lacked a targeted, multidimensional scale focused specifically on how lay populations and targeted recipients perceive, evaluate, and react to evangelistic behaviors.<\/p>\n Seyfarth et al. (1984) explicitly conceptualized evangelism as "the employment of religious ideology in intensive direct contacts with prospective recruits" (p. 56). In doing so, the authors differentiated evangelism from passive religious identification or institutional church attendance. Evangelism inherently requires social interaction, ideological persuasion, and crossing interpersonal boundaries. Consequently, this instrument serves multiple distinct empirical and clinical functions:<\/p>\n By establishing an empirically derived metric, the authors provided an instrument capable of capturing both the affirmative appraisal of evangelistic zeal (viewing it as an act of courage, love, or duty) and the defensive aversion toward unsolicited religious overtures (viewing them as invasive, coercive, or socially inappropriate).<\/p>\n The core psychological construct measured by the instrument is attitude toward evangelism<\/em>, defined as a multidimensional, evaluative disposition toward the rights, practices, methodologies, and socio-ethical acceptability of religious groups engaging in active proselytization. Rather than treating attitudes toward religious outreach as a unidimensional continuum from positive to negative, Seyfarth and colleagues recognized that religious communication operates across distinct operational modalities and cognitive appraisals.<\/p>\n The conceptual framework of the scale distinguishes two fundamental delivery modalities of evangelistic enterprise:<\/p>\n The 21-item final scale operationalizes these components across four specific empirical factors identified in the initial exploratory factor extraction (Seyfarth et al., 1984):<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale is grounded in foundational paradigms from social psychology, communication theory, and the psychology of attitudes<\/a>. Specifically, its conceptual architecture draws upon the Tripartite Model of Attitudes, Psychological Reactance Theory, and Intergroup Contact Models.<\/p>\n Within classical social psychology (e.g., Hovland<\/a>, Rosenberg, & McGuire), attitudes consist of three interacting components: affective<\/em> (emotional reactions), cognitive<\/em> (beliefs, knowledge, and evaluative judgments), and behavioral<\/em> (action tendencies or behavioral intentions). The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale directly operationalizes all three strata:<\/p>\n A crucial theoretical mechanism underlying negative attitudes toward evangelism is Psychological Reactance Theory<\/a>, formulated by Jack Brehm (1966). Brehm posited that when an individual perceives that their behavioral freedoms, personal autonomy, or cognitive sovereignty are threatened or restricted, an aversive motivational state (reactance) is activated, driving the individual to restore the threatened freedom. Evangelism, by its communicative nature, explicitly seeks to alter an individual’s worldview, moral code, and religious affiliation. When an evangelist initiates an unsolicited contact (especially within private spaces such as the home), the recipient often experiences an implicit or explicit threat to autonomy. Items such as Item 2 ("Religious soliciting is an infringement on my right to privacy") and Item 6 ("Religion shouldn’t be pushed") capture the operational manifestation of psychological reactance against ideological imposition.<\/p>\n The scale also interfaces with Cognitive Dissonance Theory<\/a> (Festinger<\/a>, 1957) and social schema theory. Individuals hold deeply ingrained cognitive representations concerning religious privacy, sacredness, and social norms. In Western secularized democracies, prevailing cultural scripts often emphasize that religion is a profoundly personal, interior matter. When evangelists engage in public witnessing or unannounced home visitation, they violate normative social scripts regarding interpersonal distance and the secular nature of public space. High scores on the scale reflect cognitive schemas that integrate evangelism as an expression of authentic religious liberty and communal care, whereas low scores signify schemas that categorize evangelism as an aggressive boundary transgression and socio-normative violation.<\/p>\n The psychometric validity of the Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale was thoroughly established through criterion-group analyses, construct validation, and correlational comparisons during its original construction (Seyfarth et al., 1984).<\/p>\n To demonstrate construct validity<\/a>, Seyfarth et al. correlated the scale scores with the Fanaticism subscale from Putney and Middleton’s (1961)<\/a> classic Dimensions of Religious Ideology Scale. Putney and Middleton defined religious fanaticism as an unyielding conviction that one possesses absolute religious truth coupled with an urgent impulse to impose that truth upon others. The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale demonstrated a robust correlation of:<\/p>\n r<\/em> = .76 (p<\/em> < .001)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This high correlation provides compelling convergent evidence that favorable attitudes toward evangelism are intrinsically linked to strong, uncompromising religious ideologies that prioritize proselytization as an absolute imperative. However, because the correlation does not approach unity, it also indicates that the scale retains unique variance, capturing evaluative appraisals of interpersonal civil liberties and evangelistic techniques beyond raw religious fanaticism.<\/p>\n The validation study provided extensive evidence of known-groups validity<\/a>, demonstrating that the scale meaningfully differentiates between demographic, religious, and denominational cohorts based on predictable theoretical distinctions:<\/p>\n The Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale displays outstanding internal consistency and psychometric stability, as documented in the primary validation research conducted across independent student samples at Oregon State University (Seyfarth et al., 1984).<\/p>\n To establish the scale’s internal consistency without the confounding influence of item-order effects, the authors utilized a split-half reliability protocol on their secondary validation cohort:<\/p>\n A corrected reliability coefficient of .91 satisfies the most stringent psychometric criteria (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) for psychological assessment instruments, exceeding the recommended benchmark of .80 for basic research and approaching the .90 threshold required for individual diagnostic evaluation. This exceptionally high coefficient demonstrates that the 21 items, despite spanning different factor loadings, coalesce around a unified, highly consistent latent construct.<\/p>\n The scale’s reliability is further underscored by the rigorous empirical procedures utilized during its item-selection phase. From an initial pool of 80 potential items, the researchers systematically evaluated item-total correlations and extreme-group discriminability. Only items demonstrating maximal statistical divergence between the upper 10% (highest scoring decile) and the lower 10% (lowest scoring decile) of the exploratory distribution were retained. This criterion-referenced selection ensured optimal item discrimination and item-scale homogeneity, effectively eliminating psychometric noise and minimizing standard error of measurement across the score continuum.<\/p>\n The structural dimensionality of the Attitude Toward Evangelism Scale was established through exploratory factor analysis<\/a> (EFA) on the retained 21 items. Seyfarth and colleagues (1984) employed a factor extraction threshold requiring primary item loadings of at least .30 for structural retention.<\/p>\n The analysis revealed a multidimensional solution characterized by four primary factors. The items loading onto each factor, listed in descending order of correlational magnitude, include:<\/p>\n2. Keywords<\/h2>\n
3. Authors<\/h2>\n
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4. Purpose<\/h2>\n
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5. Psychological Construct<\/h2>\n
The Dual-Component Structural Model<\/h3>\n
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Latent Factor Dimensions<\/h3>\n
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6. Theoretical Framework<\/h2>\n
The Tripartite Model of Attitudes<\/h3>\n
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Psychological Reactance Theory<\/h3>\n
Cognitive Consistency and Religious Schemas<\/h3>\n
7. Validity<\/h2>\n
Construct and Convergent Validity<\/h3>\n
Known-Groups and Discriminant Validity<\/h3>\n
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8. Reliability<\/h2>\n
Split-Half Reliability Coefficients<\/h3>\n
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Item Homogeneity and Decile Discrimination<\/h3>\n
9. Factor Analysis<\/h2>\n
Factor Loadings and Latent Architecture<\/h3>\n