PERSONAL GOALS: A NEW APPROACH IN STUDYING RELIGIOUS MOTIVATION

In order to understand what makes people engage inreligious beliefs and behaviors, it is necessary to study their religiousmotivation. As there are many controversies concerning the intrinsic-extrinsicreligious orientation, alternative ways of studying religious motivation need tobe developed. The present research investigates the possibility of studyingreligious motivation through an appraisal of personal religious goals. Using amixed methodology, a taxonomy of religious goals is constructed, whichincludes: personal development goals, relinquishment / fasting goals, goalsregarding one’s relation to God, and goals oriented towards others. A positivecorrelation between the number of personal religious goals and intrinsicreligious orientation is highlighted by the results of the present research. Also,our research points out a significant correlation between intrinsic and extrinsicreligious orientations. This finding suggests that the two dimensions are notmutually exclusive, as initially assumed by Allport (1950, 1966).