Ramadan Experience and Behavior: Relationships with Religious Orientation among Pakistani Muslims

Within the Ideological Surround Model of the social sciences and religion, so-called "universal" perspectives within the psychology of religion can dialogically clarify and be clarified by the "particular" elements of Muslim (and other forms of religious) commitment. This study developed new scales for operationalizing the experience and behavior of Pakistani Muslims during Ramadan. In a sample of university students, one set of experiential factors apparently facilitated, whereas another interfered with the practices of Ramadan. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientations correlated with greater and the Extrinsic Social motivation with lower levels of involvement in Ramadan. Relative to these religious orientation measures, Ramadan experience scales displayed incremental validity by explaining additional variance in Ramadan behavior. Women proved to be more religious than men. At the most general level, these data further supported the dialogic assumptions of the Ideological Surround Model of research in the psychology of religion.