Explicit VS Implicit Measurement of Religiosity: It Takes Two to Tango!

FARAH NADHIFA A, Galang Lufityanto, Ph.D

2019 | Skripsi | S1 PSIKOLOGI

Studi ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan pengaruh religiusitas dalam perilaku manusia yang seringkali mengalami hambatan karena keengganan orang untuk memberikan jawaban maupun tanggapan secara jujur. Khususnya pada sebuah negara yang mengasosiasikan religiusitas dengan moralitas, seperti Indonesia. Pengukuran tingkat religiusitas secara subjektif akan menjadi bermasalah. Penelitian ini menggunakan teknik implisit untuk mengukur tingkat religiusitas secara subjektif. Subjek terdiri dari 120 mahasiswa sarjana di dua set percobaan. Subjek diberi pengukuran secara eksplisit menggunakan The Centrality of Religious Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012). Hasil menunjukkan bahwa subjek yang diberikan informasi keagamaan menunjukkan lebih banyak perilaku keagamaan dalam pengukuran implisit dibandingkan dengan subjek yang diberikan informasi non-religius (netral). Menariknya, tidak ada perbedaan dalam skala religiusitas yang dimaksudkan untuk mengukur tingkat spiritualitas antara religious priming dan non-religious priming. Ini menunjukkan bahwa orang memiliki reaksi yang berbeda ketika diberikan pengukuran secara eksplisit (yaitu kuesioner). Hasil menunjukkan bahwa untuk memahami variabel yang rentan terhadap social desirability, perlu dipertimbangkan pengukuran yang lebih sensitif yaitu secara implisit dan eksplisit.

Previous studies intended to examine the influence of religion in human behavior often faced stumbling blocks due to people's reluctance to provide honest responses. Consequently, the measurement of religious level became problematic due to its susceptibility to measurement bias when researchers used technique allowing participants to be aware of the purpose of the measurement. Aiming at addressing the abovementioned issue, this current research utilized a novel technique to measure religiosity in implicit level using certain behavioral task. Using this technique, participants were kept unaware from the real purpose of this measurement. Data was collected from a total of 120 undergraduate students across two sets of experiment. Participants' data then was compared against explicit measurement using The Centrality of Religious Scale (Huber & Huber, 2012) standardized questionnaire targeted to measure perceived religiosity). Result demonstrated that participants who were primed with religious information demonstrated more religious behavior in the subsequent implicit measurement than those who were primed with non-religious information (i.e. neutral). Interestingly, there was no distinct religious responses found in the explicit measurement between religious and non-religious primed groups indicating subjective bias that leaded to overestimating the degree of responses particularly on the non-religious primed group. This finding has generally indicated that implicit measurement is more sensitive and free from biases to measure religiosity, therefore can be complimentary to the explicit measurement in order to grasp the complex phenomenon of religiosity.

Kata Kunci : Religion, implicit versus explicit, priming, social desirability bias.