Constructs of Religiosity and Moral Issues: Structural Equation Modeling

There are many studies on public and private morality using the European Values Study (Halman & Vloet, 1994; Halman, 2009, Vermeer & Halman, 2012) – but there is no parsimonious model on measuring three dimensions of religiosity within the same context. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to test the proposed original model of religiosity and assumptions of measurement invariance of the 3B-factors between 47 European countries, and then use them in the analysis of their impact on private morality, which included attitudes towards adultery, homosexuality, divorce, prostitution, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. Using the EVS 2008 dataset, a structural equation model that distinguishes between three components of religion will be used to classify countries based on the level of believing, behaving, and belonging out there. In the following, an investigation whether “belonging” is the most important dimension in influencing attitudes towards topics related to death, sex, etc., will be conducted, followed by discussion on what can affect religiosity dimensions and their relationship with private morality in different countries.