Religiosity: Towards A Conceptualization and An Operationalization

Abstract

Religiosity is closely interwoven with the lives of Sri Lankan citizens who are adherents of mainly Buddhist, and then Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths. There is a growing interest in conducting research on religiosity. There are many definitions of religiosity but they need to be refined since they do not represent the whole idea of religiosity. Religiosity is defined as the extent to which the particular employee believes in and venerates the founder, gods or goddesses of the relevant religion, practices the relevant teaching and participates in the relevant activities. Religiosity involves one’s being religious earnestly and really rather than one’s being religious frivolously and nominally. The dimensions and elements of religiosity have been investigated with a view to developing an instrument to measure the variable of religiosity. Reliability and validity of the instrument are also presented.