Confronta i metodi

	God Image Measurement	Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)
Campo	Religious Studies	Religious Studies
Famiglia	Latent structure	Latent structure
Anno di origine	1973	1967
Ideatore	Peter Benson & Bernard Spilka	Gordon W. Allport & J. Michael Ross
Tipo	Multidimensional latent measure of God representation	Two-factor attitudinal scale with fourfold categorization
Fonte seminale	Benson, P., & Spilka, B. (1973). God image as a function of self-esteem and locus of control. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 12(3), 297-310.	Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432-443.
Alias	God Image Inventory, God Concept Measurement, God Representation Scale, Loving-Controlling God Image	Allport-Ross ROS, Religious Orientation Scale, Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale, Indiscriminate Proreligious Categorization
Correlati	3	3
Sintesi	God image measurement quantifies the emotional, relational picture a believer holds of God — not the doctrines they affirm, but how they experience the divine as, say, loving or wrathful, accepting or rejecting, near or distant, controlling or permissive. Peter Benson and Bernard Spilka's 1973 study established the empirical approach: they measured the God image along evaluative dimensions and showed that it is systematically tied to the self, with people higher in self-esteem and internal locus of control picturing a more loving and accepting God. The tradition distinguishes the God image (the affect-laden, experienced representation) from the God concept (the formally professed theological description) and measures the former as a multidimensional latent construct from ratings of attributed divine characteristics.	The Religious Orientation Scale (ROS), introduced by Gordon Allport and J. Michael Ross in 1967, is the instrument that operationalized Allport's distinction between two motivational stances toward faith. The extrinsic orientation treats religion as a means to other ends — comfort, security, social standing — while the intrinsic orientation treats faith as the master motive that the believer lives by. The ROS measures the two orientations on separate item sets rather than as opposite ends of one continuum, which means a respondent can score high, low, or moderate on each independently. Allport and Ross used this independence to build a fourfold typology, adding the 'indiscriminately proreligious' (high on both) and 'indiscriminately antireligious' (low on both) categories, and showed that orientation, not mere churchgoing, predicted prejudice.