Journal of Religion and Health

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00897-5

ORIGINAL PAPER

Development and Validation of Religious Tolerance Scale

for Youth

Mehak Batool1 · Bushra Akram1

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019

Abstract
The objective of the present research was to develop and validate an indigenous
scale of religious tolerance for young adults, based on Van der Walt (2014) model
of religious tolerance. The two independent studies were conducted in this regard.
In the first study, a pool of 81 items was generated and after qualitative analysis
and pilot study, 53 items were retained for exploratory factor analysis. Using the
data from the sample of (N = 500) students, the items were then subjected to prin-
cipal component analysis using varimax rotation method. A factor solution based
on 25 items and 7 well-structured factors was obtained. Afterward, a similar sample
of (N = 282) students was obtained for confirmatory factor analysis that confirmed
the factor structure of the scale with 23 items. In the second study, validation of the
scale was determined by examining its convergent and discriminant validity with
the original religious tolerance questionnaire and balanced dogmatism sale, respec-
tively. The results of the study uphold religious tolerance scale as a promising indig-
enous psychometric measure for religious tolerance.

Keywords  Religious tolerance · Youth · Exploratory factor analysis · Confirmatory

factor analysis · Validation

Introduction

Every religion usually perceives itself the only true and meaningful religion in the
world, proclaiming real revelation and the true way of salvation while being exclu-
sive to other religions. This exclusive attitude often leads to many conflicts and
disagreements between opposing religions and every multi-religious country in the
world. Thus, the religious diversity requires a dire need for freedom at the national
level while tolerance at an individual level.

* Mehak Batool
batoolmehak56@gmail.com
1
Department of Psychology, University of Gujrat, Gujrat, Pakistan

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 Journal of Religion and Health

The word tolerance is originated from the Latin word tolerare (to bear or sus-
tain) (Laursen 2005). It refers to the ability to put up with something a person
does not find good, often in order to live and survive better with others (Vogt
2007). There are two key models of tolerance: (1) passive tolerance and (2) active
tolerance. The first one refers to the acceptance of differences as factual, whereas
later means to involve with others despite differences and variations. It results
in living side by side peacefully and accepting variations that exist (Muhammad
2009). Likewise, the term religious tolerance refers to the capacity for recogniz-
ing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others which disagree with one’s
own (Bakar 2010). According to Potgieter, Van der Walt and Wolhuter (2014),
religious tolerance is a rather difficult concept to describe. Religious tolerance
can be considered a social construct which is confined in terms of seven key con-
cepts. On ground of these seven facets, religious tolerance can be described as
respectful, significant and empathetic approach of individuals or groups, which in
a context of differences, accept and preserve the right of others to appreciate spe-
cific beliefs and values while admitting that other people have the right of judg-
ment and evaluation of these beliefs according to their own belief system (Broer
et al. 2014).
In addition to it, Van der Walt (2014) gave a model of religious tolerance in
which the authors indicated six dimensions of religious tolerance labeled as: (A)
denial of difference (sometimes attributed as religiously deviant behavior, they char-
acterize other individuals in a homogeneous group and protect their personal fish-
bowl from change by being isolated), (B) defense against difference (people in this
category identify and negatively evaluate those religious differences; more the dif-
ferences greater the negative evaluation they have), (C) minimization of difference
(they believe no differences among all individuals except a few superficial religious
differences like rituals and eating customs), (D) acceptance of difference (such peo-
ple acknowledge religious differences in terms of beliefs and practices and can be
attributed as believers of religious relativism), (E) adaptation to difference (they can
intentionally shift their attitude into alternative religious perspectives and can per-
form a religiously adequate behavior in those areas) and (F) integration of difference
(people from this category have all the characteristics of previous one as well as the
ability to develop a definition of identity marginal to any specific religion).
There are various advantages of religious tolerance and challenges of religious
intolerance in any society. For peaceful living of multi-religious countries, a tolerant
attitude and a harmony of regulation by the government are required rather than the
complete freedom or the high level of control and restrictions that can undermine
the harmony. There has been found a linear relationship between higher religious
repression and high level of social tension, hostility, violence and disharmony. Pew
research data (2012) suggest that 43% of the countries have high level of religious
restrictions and therefore have high social hostility. Pakistan is one of those coun-
tries that have very high religious restrictions or top-down regulations, and it also
shows high level of social hostility involving religion. It may be because the reli-
gious restriction makes the victimized religious groups more active and resentful.
Thus, a harmony of government regulation and a balanced control are needed in any
society.

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The importance of religious tolerance has been emphasized by almost every reli-
gion. Religious tolerance and harmony are the fundamental teachings of Christian-
ity. Christianity loudly proclaims and prevails love among people. The Bible calls
for love of neighbors and other human beings despite the fact that they are their
enemies. Such as, Luke (6: 30–31) emphasize, “Give to everyone who asks of you.
And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you
want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” (Abu Bakar 2013). Hinduism
differs from Christianity, Islam and other monotheistic religions. As it does not have
a single God and founder, an individual theological system, certain principles about
right and wrong, no idea of the prophet and no single holy book. It comprises “thou-
sands of different religious groups developed in India since 1500 BCE.” Hinduism is
considered tolerant due to the recognition of all prevailing Gods as a manifestation
of one divine power. Like other religions, Buddhism is also considered a tolerant
religion. Warder (1997) outlined that the Buddha Doctrine indicates truth, peaceful
existence, liberty, toleration and other ideas inseparable; losing one can cause to lose
all. There is a mutual agreement with all these facets of ‘truth’. In Islam, tolerance
does not mean to ignore and avoid others as well as of one’s own religious prin-
ciples and obligation. Additionally, the religious tolerance in Islam does not mean
to consider all religious beliefs equal. Rather, it refers to acknowledge the right of
others to freely adhere to their own beliefs as of oneself and accept the fact that all
human beings vary in terms of their appearance, language, beliefs and values. Thus,
no one has the right to impose his/her own views on others. This is the politically
correct position that all beliefs and life styles should be accepted no matter how
illogical or misguided. But the increasing cases of extremism and the emergence
of extremists’ groups named as Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS and their
acts of barbarity manifest that the Philosophy of Islamic teachings is based on intol-
erance, disharmony, extremism and non-acceptance of pluralism. Moreover, these
groups justify their acts by literal and extreme inferences of Islam. This extremist
and twisted interpretation of Islamic teachings distract from what is right (Thow-
feek 2017). Therefore, a question arises of whether Muslims are religiously intoler-
ant and whether they can adjust in pluralistic society. These and other related queries
can be answered only through researches in this area. And the development of a
standardized valid measure of religious tolerance is the crucial step to initiate the
work. Therefore, the current study aimed to develop a scale of religious tolerance
for the youth. There is an increased need to conduct studies related to religious toler-
ance among the most outnumber age group of the Pakistani population.
According to the new National Human Development Report by the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Pakistan, there 64% of the total popu-
lation is below the age of 30 while 29% is between the ages of 15 and 29  years
(Ahmad 2018). This age group is the key target group for radicalization and recruit-
ment by violent extremist groups: This includes youth from all socioeconomic
backgrounds. The extremist groups recruit more young man and woman for their
purposes. Thus, attention is required to target this youth bulge of the population to
assess the tolerance level in terms of religion; also to develop a tolerant/intolerant
attitude toward religious differences in young individuals is easy as compared to old
adults. Therefore, present study can help to not only estimate the tolerance level of

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youth but also to develop useful interventions if needed. It is to develop a scale that
can be understandable to our target population and true nature of religious tolerance/
intolerance can be analyzed among the youth. For this reason, there were following
objectives of the present study to attain:

1. To develop a scale of religious tolerance for the youth.

2. To establish the psychometric properties of religious tolerance scale.

Methods

Study‑I: Development of Religious Tolerance Scale

This study was completed into three phases.

Phase‑I: Generation of Pool of Items

At the first stage of phase-I, item pool (in Urdu) was generated related to the con-
cept of religious tolerance. This stage entails in its various tasks and considerations
to create a pool of items which were aspirant for ultimate inclusion in the test for
the phenomenon of interest. For this purpose, suggestion by DeVellis (2012) and
Spector (2006) was considered to make an adequate item pool. For example, care
was taken to generate the items which are short and clear, each statement commu-
nicates only one idea and the readability of the items matches to target population
and avoided colloquialism. A Likert response format of five points with a range of
strongly agree to strongly disagree was utilized. Moreover, to generate an initial list
of items that specifically measure the construct of interest, a monograph of religious
tolerance developed by Van der Walt (2014), as well as the literature available to dif-
ferent dimensions of religious tolerance, was followed.
Second, items were generated by the public. For this purpose, a Performa based
on the clear definitions of six dimensions of religious tolerance defined in the mono-
graph of religious tolerance by Van der Walt (2014) was given to the subjects includ-
ing students of the university and other individuals who showed interest in item gen-
eration having an age range of 20–35. The individuals were requested to develop not
less than five items for each given facet of religious tolerance. In this way, a pool of
items containing 81 items was obtained.

Expert Review  The item pool was later analyzed by six judges (including, three Ph.D
of psychology, two lecturers and one psychologist). The panel critically evaluated the
items and checked the structure, clarity, content and face validity of the statements.
In this way, items were rephrased and redundant items were discarded according to
the suggestions of the judges. Hence, 75 items were selected to proceed on. It was
decided that the five-point Likert-type scale would be scored in a way where high
scores indicate a high level of religious tolerance and vice versa.

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A tryout was carried out on sample of 38 students with the age range of 18–28
(M = 21.39, SD = 2.59) to assess the understandability of the items by target pop-
ulation. Following the outcomes of Kolmogorov–Smirnov test of normality, 22
out of 75 items were deleted owing to non-normality, and 53 items were retained
for exploratory factor analysis in next phase of the study.

Phase‑II: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Sample  A convenient sample of (N = 550) students was obtained from four different
universities (University of Gujrat, University of Sargodha, University of Agricul-
ture Faisalabad and Arid Agriculture University of Rawalpindi), in order to get data
for exploratory factor analysis (EFA). After screening and excluding missing data, a
sample of 500 young adults was selected for analysis. This sample size was greater to
the item ratio as compare to the suggested minimum ratio of 5 participants to 1 item
(at least 150 participants) (Gorsuch 1983). The age of the sample varied from 17 to
34 years of age (M = 21.43, SD = 2.75).

Procedure  The sample for factorial analysis was obtained from four universities of
different cities of Pakistan. After departmental permission and formal permission
of concerned authorities of all four universities, the participants were personally
approached in their departments. The detailed procedure and purpose of the study,
as well as the importance of their contribution, was explained to them. As the scale
at this stage was a little lengthy, based on 53 items that is why most of the partici-
pants were reluctant to fill it out. The respondents were not forced to participate in
the study, and questionnaire was distributed among only the willing participants.

Results  After examining the normality of data by using SPSS 21.0  V, explora-
tory factor analysis using varimax rotation method helped to establish the factorial
validity of the scale. The varimax rotation method and principal component analy-
sis extracted a total number of nine factors that explained 65.35% variance in data
pool. By observing the scree plot, seven out of nine factors with eigenvalue > 1.0
(Kaiser 1960) were selected because two of the nine factors contained only one or
two items. These fixed number of selected seven factors having 25 items explained
61.33% variance of the total. Component transformation matrix manifested appro-
priateness of orthogonal method because there was low inter-correlation among
most of the items (Coakes and Steed 2003).
It was observed that the seven well-structured factors obtained through vari-
max orthogonal rotation were in line with the dimensions of Van der Walt (2014)
monograph, on the basis of which present religious tolerance scale was being
developed. However, the items in all seven factors were conceptually different
from each other. Later, a CFA was applied to confirm the factor structure obtained
through EFA.

Results  See Table 1.

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Table 1  EFA item lodgings for each item on seven factors

S# Item F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7

1 8 .318
2 47 .754
3 49 .736
4 53 .603
5 29 .794
6 30 .738
7 31 .496
8 35 .479
9 50 .359
10 1 .569
11 3 .695
12 4 .749
13 46 .349
14 10 .615
15 11 .727
16 16 .769
17 7 .673
18 15 .731
19 19 .437
20 2 .360
21 5 .777
22 6 .779
23 39 .549
24 41 .718
25 42 .482
Eigen values 9.66 4.119 2.745 2.277 1.857 1.839 1.783
% of variance 20.22 11.66 8.09 6.13 5.78 5.05 4.39
Cumulative variance 31.88 39.97 46.1 51.88 56.93 61.32

Phase III: Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In this phase of the present study, CFA was used to confirm the factorial structure of
the measure.

Sample  A separate sample of (N = 282) students (n = 75 boys and n = 207 girls)
was obtained from University of Gujrat. Their age range was 18–29 (M = 21.19,
SD = 2.85). The suggested sample size for CFA is 5–20 individuals for each param-
eter estimate (Schumacker and Lomax 1996); thus, the sample size of this study was
appropriate for analysis. Moreover, other factors such as outlier or missing data that
may affect the analysis were also screened out to get an accurate model fit of the
structure.

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Table 2  Model fit statistics for Scale N AGFI GFI RMSEA PCLOSE CFI
confirmatory factor analysis
RTQ 276 .896 .924 .038 .975 .905

N number of individuals

Fig. 1  Factor structure of the scale obtained from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

Amos 21.0 was employed to run a CFA. The values of AGFI, GFI, RMSEA,
PCLOSE and CFI indicated a perfect model fit for the scale.

Results  Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) Values of Chi-squared (χ2), com-

parative fit index (CFI) and root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA)
guided by Brown (2006) were used to determine goodness of fit for CFA. The
original model fit was χ2 (DF = 254, N = 325) = 502.58, p = .000, CFI = 0.75,
RMSEA = 0.05 with PCLOSE = 0.00 (.026) not acceptable (Table  2). Three
standard steps were carried out to increase model fit. Thus, regression weights
were observed and items 1 and 16 were deleted because of high occurrence (12
and 14 times), respectively, and irrelevance to the subscales, (result CFI = .818).
There remained two items in factor four which is acceptable for model identifi-
cation as suggested by two indicator rule (Kline 2005). Afterward, a correlation
was added between two error terms with same content found on modification
indices (i.e., EPC-value ≥ 10.00) (Kline 2005), and few executions (see Fig. 1)
were carried out, the model improved to CFI = .905 an acceptable value for model
fit as indicated above: χ2 (DF = 203, N = 276) = 287.04, p = .000, CFI = .905,
RMSEA = 0.03 with PCLOSE = 0.00 (.097).
It is evident from Table 3 that all of the subscales have a significant correla-
tion with each other and showed a good reliability index ranging from .71 to .85.

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Table 3  Inter-correlation, mean and standard deviation among subscales of RTS

S# Subscales r1 r2 r3 r4 r5 r6 r7

1 MRD – .32** .44** .31** .29** .21* .29*

2 Inc – – .23* .26* .56** .42** .52***
3 Exc – – – .34** .33** .26* .29**
4 OC – – – – .30** .15* .19*
5 FRC – – – – – .36* .59***
6 RC – – – – – – .48**
7 RFO – – – – – – –
8 Mean 14.37 20.15 11.28 7.19 12.16 11.89 12.15
9 SD 3.62 3.46 2.59 1.97 2.16 2.54 4.29
10 Cronbach’s alphas .75 .71 .73 .76 .63 .85 .78

*p < .05; **p < .01

Study‑II: Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Religious Tolerance Scale

The study-II was designed to find out the validity of the religious tolerance scale.
The convergent validity of the scale was determined by observing its correla-
tion with the original religious tolerance questionnaire, whereas for discriminant
validity, the scores of RTS were correlated with the scores of Balanced Dogma-
tism Scale (Ray 1970).

Sample

A sample of (N = 60) students was obtained from University of Gujrat. Their age
was 18–28 years (M = 22.73; SD = 2.37) and boys and girls ratio was 29 and 31,
respectively. All the participants of the sample were personally contacted. They
were briefed about the aim and nature of the study. Participants were asked to
carefully read given directions and complete all three scales cautiously, not to
skip any item.

Instruments of the Study

Religious Tolerance Scale (RTS) is a 23 item self-report test. The scale is devel-
oped on particular cultural context of Pakistan, following Van der Walt (2014)
theory of religious tolerance. It is based on seven factors named as (a) minimiza-
tion of religious differences (b) inclusivity (c) exclusivity and self-centeredness,
(d) openness for change, (e) faith and respect for others (f) religious conviction
and (g) recognizing the freedom of others. Response on this scale requires five-
point Likert types ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Four items
need reverse scoring such as 12, 16, 17 and 18. High level of religious tolerance

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is indicated by high scores and vice versa. The scale has a good reliability with
Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .71 to .85 for its subscales.

Religious Tolerance Questionnaire (RTQ: Broer et al. 2014)

It is a 50-item test divided into six subscales, named as: religious convictions (9
items), respect (9 items), exclusivity (5 items), understanding the need for a posi-
tive modus vivendi (peaceful coexistence) (10 items), (5) inclusivity (11 items) and
recognize the freedom of others and attitude of indifference toward others (6 items).
The questionnaire requires response on six-point Likert-type scale ranging from
strongly disagrees to strongly agree. Originally constructed in the English language,
the questionnaire has translated into other languages as well such as Afrikaans,
Tswana and Dutch and have a reliability value of .89, .86, .71 and .74, respectively
(Broer et al. 2016).

Balanced Dogmatism Scale (Ray 1970)

Balanced Dogmatism Scale (BDS) is used to assess the intolerance and close-
mindedness of the sample. It is a 36-item measure. The scale resulted from item
analysis on a combination of Rokeach’s 40 items ‘D’ scale and 9 items from its revi-
sion by Anderson and Western (1967). The author also wrote new items to indi-
cate sentiments contrary to those characterize for archetypical dogmatic individu-
als. Responses are scored on a five-point Likert-type scale (strongly agree—strongly
disagree) and are scored 5–1, respectively. The first half of the scale is positively
scored while the later halves contain negative items. There is a strong correlation
(.71) between these two halves. It is an internally consistent and reliable measure for
students (α = .91) and adult community (α = .78), including a good reliability value
of positive and negative items separately .80 and .64. The convergent validity of the
scale is also good, as it has a strong correlation with belief and dogmatism scale
with correlation value of r = .51 (Ray 1970).

Table 4  Correlation of total Scale RTQ BDS

religious tolerance and its
subscales with religious Total RTS .64*** − .53***
tolerance questionnaire (RTQ)
and Total Balanced Dogmatism 1 Minimization of religious differences .67*** − .40*
Scale (BDS) 2 Inclusivity .40** − .31*
3 Exclusivity and self-centeredness .55*** − .24
4 Openness for change .52*** − .33*
5 Faith and respect for others .59*** − .44*
6 Religious conviction − .13 − .34*
7 Recognizing the freedom of others .54*** − .23

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

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Results

It is evident from Table 4 that the indigenously developed religious tolerance scale
has a significant positive correlation (r = .64, p < .001) with the original religious
tolerance questionnaire. All the subscales of religious tolerance measure (except fac-
tor six) manifested a significant correlation with total scores of original religious
tolerance questionnaire. The correlation coefficient of subscales ranged from r = .67
to r = .40.
Moreover, with reference to discriminant validity, the results confirmed that the
two scales measure two empirically different constructs. There was a strong negative
relationship between two scales (r = −.53, p < .001). In addition to total RTS scores,
its subscales showed a significant negative correlation with BDS.

Discussion

Appreciation of tolerance and nonviolent coexistence is an immediate need of this

religiously diverse and conflict-ridden world. Religious tolerance is an impor-
tant construct to be explored and studied on Pakistani cultural context because of
increased cases of intolerance regarding social, cultural and religious factors. With
this reference, it seems important to explore tolerance level of the youth regarding
religious factors and plan some interventions if needed, in order to establish a har-
mony among differing religious beliefs. But there is no standardized tool yet devel-
oped on Pakistani cultural context. The present study was therefore aimed to con-
struct an indigenous self-report scale of religious tolerance for the youth.
The indigenously developed scale of the religious tolerance was found to have
good psychometric properties. The model of Van der Walt (2014) gave conceptual
grounds for generation of items. The monograph by Van der Walt was used because
it is a multidimensional and mixed model approach to religious tolerance that entails
in it valuable concepts of other theories as well, and it captures almost all the fac-
ets of the construct, religious tolerance. Items were generated for each of the six
dimensions given in the model; these items were meant to effectively capture their
corresponding dimension taking help from the existing literature. Content validity
of the measure was established by taking the subject matter experts’ view before
exploratory factor analysis. The factor structure of RTS indicated it a multidimen-
sional scale. The scale was based on seven factors named as (a) minimization of
religious differences, (b) inclusivity, (c) exclusivity and self-centeredness, (d) open-
ness for change, (e) faith and respect for others, (f) religious conviction and (g) rec-
ognizing the freedom of others. It was evident by a close examination that the seven
factors were truly comparable to the features of religious tolerance highlighted by
Van der Walt (2014) model. Later, a CFA was applied to confirm the factor structure
obtained through EFA.
Among the two types of factor analysis: exploratory factor analysis and confirma-
tory factor analysis researchers perform confirmatory factor analysis when there is a
prior research on the appropriate course of action to take regarding measurement of
a phenomenon (Kline 2013). For example, researchers perform confirmatory factor

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Journal of Religion and Health

analysis when prior research indicates that a phenomenon should be measured using
a scale comprised of two or three subscales. In this study, a priori hypothesis about
how the religious tolerance items identified during earlier stages of scale devel-
opment would group together to measure religious tolerance was available to the
researcher. Thus, confirmatory factor analysis was the appropriate course of action
to take after exploratory factor analysis. And during the process of confirmatory fac-
tor analysis, a model fit was gained with final 23 items.
Alpha reliability coefficient was found satisfactory. The results presented the
measure as internally consistent with good reliability and validity estimates. The
evidence of convergent validity was acquired by having significant positive rela-
tionship of RTS with original religious tolerance questionnaire. The correlation
coefficient confirmed the convergent validity of the scale because above r = .50 is
a recommended value for convergent validity, while values below r = .50 are not
considered sufficient to assure the validity of the measure (Carlson and Herdman
2012). All of the subscales also showed a significant positive relationship, except
the sixth subscale labeled as religious conviction, which indicated a nonsignificant
negative relationship with the measure. These results were logical because religious
conviction is directly related to religious conservatism. Such as in a meta-analysis
by Skitka et  al. (2018), it was found that moral and religious convictions are two
different constructs; however, they tightly connect for only religious conservatives.
Therefore, those who score high on religious conviction are more conservative and
less tolerant toward other differing religions. Thus, these findings help to conclude
having sufficient confirmation of convergent validity.
To confirm the accuracy of the measure, the discriminant validity was assessed,
and a significant negative correlation was observed between RTS and BDS. These
findings are in line with the scholarly literature, suggesting that the two measures
assess completely different constructs to each other. As Martin and Morris (1982)
indicated that tolerance scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory and Rokeach’s
Dogmatism Scale have a negative link with one another. And an inverse relationship
(r = −.575, p = .001) was obtained between two measures. Similarly, Korn and Gid-
dan (1964) conducted a study to investigate discriminant validity of the tolerance
scale. The researchers administered the two measures of tolerance scale of CPI and
Rokeach’s Dogmatism Scale on the participants. Correlation value ranged from .00
to − .38 indicated low and negative relation between two measures.

Implications and Suggestions

The present study targeted the youth bulge which is more likely to affect overall
tolerance level of the country in religious context. The study provides a self-report
measure of religious tolerance adding strength to its reliability and validity. Despite
the usefulness of the study, there are some limitations that need to be addressed in
future studies. Although this initiative work successfully gives evidence of reliabil-
ity and validity of newly developed religious tolerance scale, further studies would
be useful to increment psychometric properties of the instrument. It is recommended
to assess the predictive validity of the measure by using long-term longitudinal

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follow-up studies of student cohorts, to explain persistence and progression in toler-

ance level of the individuals.

Compliance with Ethical Standards 

Conflict of interest  The authors claim no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval  As the study involves human participants, all the ethical obligations were followed in
this regard including the ethical standards of institutional/national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent  Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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