There’s a term in psychological called religious or belief orientation, and it describes the underlying motivational, cognitive and philosophical framework that an individual uses to enact their core convictions. Not everyone has the same belief orientation, which is why people get different things out of religion and why it can be that people who are bothered by something that contradicts their beliefs may feel strongly enough to leave, while others can feel similarly but still stay. Religious orientation broadly describes the internal compass that guides a person’s moral judgments, worldview, and behaviors.
In psychological and sociological research, there are four broad categories of belief orientation:
- Instrinsic Orientation. Beliefs are an ultimate end in themselves. Individuals with this orientation deeply internalize their convictions and let them guide their daily lives.
- Extrinsic Orientation. Beliefs are a means to an end such as a social benefit, security, or community.
- Quest Orientation. Beliefs are part of an open-minded, lifelong search for truth. This approach embraces complexity, doubt, and questioning without a need for rigid answers.
- Ideological Orientation. Beliefs encompass political, cultural, and economic stances to dictate one’s beliefs about social justice, authority, and human nature.
Belief orientation dictates how closely your actions align with your stated values. It also helps answer fundamental questions about identity, purpose, and community belonging. It also relates to facets of personality like open-mindedness, dogmatism, or social tolerance of differences.
Let’s dig a little deeper into these different belief styles people might have.
Intrinsic Orientation. Their creed is deeply internalized, and their faith is the central motivation of their life. They belong due to theological alignment, not for social convenience or status. They feel a profound, personal sense of divine worth and purpose within their religious tradition. They do not just attend; they actively embody its identity and ideals. They may make career and lifestyle choices based directly on scripture or doctrine, even when it’s unpopular or difficult. They will reject secular societal shifts that contradict with their deeply held convictions. Doubt is something they actively wrestle with and they seek to resolve it to restore internal harmony. They will dive into apologetics, prayer, scripture study, or seek counsel from trusted religious leaders to find answers that support their core belief system. They view surviving doubt as a reinforcement of their faith. If they cannot resolve it, their faith system may collapse.
Extrinsic Orientation. They are likely to be anchored by the community and institutional benefits of belonging. They make their choices based on conformity and social expectations to protect their standing. If the community’s values shift, they may shift their choices to fit the new environment. Doubt is avoided or suppressed. They rely heavily on heuristics (mental shortcuts). If a doubt arises, they quickly defer to religious authority figures or standard community answers to make the tension disappear.
Quest Orientation. Their belonging is fluid and non-traditional. They struggle significantly with rigid dogmatic institutions. They may move between different sects, become “spiritual but not religious” or join free inquiry-based communities. They prefer exploring complexities and understanding the gray areas of moral decisions. They are curious about diverse viewpoints if it leads them to a deeper understanding. For these folks, doubt is not a flaw. Doubt is the entire system. There is no such thing as spirituality without it being spurred by doubt that begins the quest. They have a high tolerance for ambiguity, and they enjoy stripping away dogmas to understand the existential questions behind them with more complexity. Their beliefs are therefore in a constant state of shifting as they gain new insights.
These orientations may change in someone’s life if their usefulness stops working for that person. These are the most common shifts people experience:
- Extrinsic to Intrinsic. A young adult often attends a religion as a result of their family upbringing, but as they mature, they may internalize it, making it their life-organizing motivation.
- Intrinsic to Quest. An existential crisis may lead an intensely devout individual to change from a rigid posture to an open-minded one.
- Quest to Intrinsic. A person who tires of skepticism and existential ambiguity may anchor themselves to a specific religious tradition to regain a sense of structured meaning and community.
The types of things that trigger these changes include:
Severe cognitive dissonance. When someone’s direct lived experience directly contradicts the theological framework of an intrinsic orientation. If you believe “good things happen if I’m faithful,” and then experience a very bad event or medical diagnosis, you may experience this kind of cognitive dissonance.
Relational trauma or abuse. If someone experiences marginalization or abusive treatment within the belief community, the individual is forced out of extrinsic conformity and into a fluid quest space to determine a safe landing plan.
Geographic and social transitions. Moving to a new city, changing career and social circles, or marrying or divorcing. For an extrinsically motivated person who relies on social capital, these types of moves trigger immediate social upheaval and loss of status. They are forced to determine if they actually believe it, or were just in it for the social benefits.
Cognitive and moral development. As we age and mature, we start to break away from the parental heuristic beliefs (“because I said so” or “it’s in the Bible”) and move to a more quest orientation. This also happens at other important life changing events. As people become parents, face mortality, or deal with a health crisis, they may open up to a more quest orientation, or conversely, they may seek the security and stability of an intrinsic orientation.
And of course, you are going to have a different belief orientation than other people in your life do, or than you used to have. This can cause people to have a hard time relating to each others’ beliefs.
- Do you recognize any of these belief orientations in yourself?
- Have you experienced a shift in your belief orientation?
- Have you been close to someone with a different belief orientation? Did it cause conflict?
Discuss.
I’ll take Quest for $400, Alex.
It strikes me that in some Christian denominations, one can practice the Quest approach fully within the denomination. That would be a denomination with a broad enough spectrum of “orthodoxy” and with enough tolerance for diverse viewpoints that one can update or shift one’s worldview (religious convictions) and still be within their circle of fellowship. Then there are those narrow orthodoxy denominations (and you know who I’m talking about) where that can’t happen. Being a public Quester means moving outside that denomination, either formally or informally.
The problem with this framework is that it pathologizes people questioning their faith instead of considering that they may have legitimate reasons to reject it. Many people don’t leave the Mormonism because of trauma or changing circumstances; they leave because they study its history, recognize its contradictions, and find its truth claims unconvincing. Sometimes it isn’t cognitive dissonance—it’s simply realizing you were taught to believe something that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s all about the truth.
De Novo, those people are the quest type, born and bred. They find the first flaws in Mormonism starting in primary at 4, when they hear this “cute” story about Joseph Smith playing with children and it reminds them of some jerk they know who likes to play with children because he is in control and can always win. They see the inherent bully that others fail to see.
I see the first, the intrinsic type in church leadership. Yup, that is the kind who moves right up into leadership if they happen to have a priesthood antenna.
The second type, external, is who the leaders like the member to be and stay. Very obedient, loyal followers.
That third type, the quest people, they may not ever be fully in, and if something comes up that makes them uncomfortable, they study themselves out. Not at ALL “lazy learners” they are on a quest for truth but a religion that is practical in that it gives them a social network and helps them be a better person and intellectual truth. They find that church history does not stand up to investigation. And there are flaws in the doctrine you could drive a semi through. And they often find the church unChristlike (a) in how it treats people (b) , hypocritical in its ethics (c) and too focused on stuff that doesn’t matter(d).
(a)too focused on forcing tithing out of poor (b) blacks, women, lgbt. (C) paying fines for illegal banking games (d) WoW, modesty
Interesting post. I couldn’t help but think of the Church’s missionary program when the OP noted that young adults commonly start out with an extrinsic orientation as they are raised in a particular religious tradition/community, but then may shift to a different orientation as they mature. The Church’s missionary program is positioned to capture young adults just at that time in their lives when so many of them are poised to make such a shift. It takes these young adults and:
1. Restricts their access to information. Their internet access is limited to official Church websites only. No access to Google or other search engines, no news sites, nothing. “4 eyes on the screen” was strictly enforced in my daughter’s recent mission. A missionary couldn’t look at their phone screen unless their companion was also viewing it at the same time. They also are extremely limited in their access to books.
2. Limits their communication with the outside world. No phone/video calls to anyone other than parents for one hour per week (and even that one call per week allowance is a recent innovation). Mission presidents and the words of other Church leaders are intended to be the main source of spoken direction–much safer than family and friends back home.
3. Gives them almost zero free time. P-Days aren’t even a full day (you have to go back to work after dinner) and are often dominated by chores, shopping, etc.
4. Requires them to be with a companion 24/7/365 largely so that one of them will tattle on the other for any breaking of rules, unorthodox thoughts, etc.
Many orthodox members consider this to be wonderful, as it ensures that a young adult is singularly focused on the Church/gospel for 18-24 months. I think it does effectively transition many young adults from extrinsic believers to intrinsic believers. For some, the change is permanent. After all, returned missionaries often say, “I went on my mission and converted myself.” For many others, the change isn’t so permanent, and a mission can be viewed as a cause of stunted growth. These returned missionaries would likely have transitioned to quest orientation earlier if their mission experience hadn’t delayed such a transition for awhile.
The Church’s lowering of the missionary service age to 18 for both young men, and now young women can be viewed as a reaction to a shift in society where many young adults were transitioning away from an extrinsic orientation to a quest orientation earlier in life. Church leaders have decided that they need to apply the cult-like control of LDS missionary life over these young people earlier these days in order to maximize the number of members with deep intrinsic belief for the remainder of their lives. I’m personally not sure if it that’s the optimal way to achieve this goal, but I believe that is essentially the calculus that Church leaders have settled on for now.
De Novo: That’s a fair point, and probably just a failure of my summary. Discovering disconfirming evidence is the most common form of cognitive dissonance, at least in my experience, and the psychological stress associated is relative to sunk costs and social group status. It’s not just when you have a medical diagnosis–it’s often when you have a free afternoon and do a minimal amount of digging. I remember once at one of my early jobs (motel desk clerk) there was an anti-Mormon pamphlet in the lobby that someone had left there. I thought “I can just throw this out, or I could write some rebuttals in the margins.” Well, the problem was that the criticisms it made about the BOM turned out to be completely valid–related to errors in the KJV that were unique to the edition Joseph Smith used. I had to find a way to twist my thinking out of that one at the time. So, you are perfectly right to say that it’s not always a major life event (e.g. “Why does God allow suffering?”), but often just a case of “Huh, I’ve been told things that are factually not accurate,” or even “I’m defending the indefensible.”
mountainclimber: Yes, I had the same thought about mission age being such an effective tactic to help young people avoid the natural maturation process of their thinking and in their spirituality. Missions aren’t JUST that, but they are ALSO that in the ways you point out. On the upside, missions can be a time of teaching young people to serve others. But there are also plenty of missionaries who avoid serving others unless they are going to get something out of it (e.g. social status from those sweet, sweet baptism stats).
DeNovo,
I’d expand on your position and say it’s more than truth. It’s about what works for people. I think we need to look at it pragmatically. This generation has different questions, questions that the church is failing to answer or even recognize.
This framework might work in societies where there are choices and alternatives, and thus it might fit for some in the U.S. Mormon or ex-Mormon communities. But believing in a religion or being raised in a religious environment are realities for vast numbers of other people, too. We must not think of things happening in the small Mormon community as Mormon phenomena, as they may really be human phenomena. I am eleven time zones away from the center place, and there are people here who are living their lives and exercising some level of participation or non-participation in the local religious culture but who might not recognize themselves within the OP’s framework.
In the Book of Mormon belief is spoken of as something that arises from hearing the word–and then it grows into faith as evidences follow. As I consider this pattern in light of the OP I find it interesting that the BoM’s teachings on belief work in spite of the categories mentioned above–not to downplay the reality of those categories–I’ve personally experienced a very clunky shifting of gears from the extrinsic to the intrinsic–or something akin to them. Even so, I think there’s something to be said for a living aspect of belief that can work in the hearts of individuals regardless of where they might find themselves with respect to the categories outlined in the OP.
When I think about growing up in the church, I feel like a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic orientations describe where I was at. I went to church because my family did and it was expected of me. I also tried to live as taught in the Book of Mormon (I can’t think of the specific reference so the quote may be off) and live as though I had perfect faith and knowledge, waiting for the confirmation of that faith.
A couple months before leaving on my mission, I had a few quiet moments talking with my older sister. She told me she was so excited for me because I had always wanted to go on a mission. I smiled and thanked her genuinely, but my mind got stuck on that comment and I just thought, “Have I?” I was going because it was expected of me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time on my mission. I worked hard and tried to be a good missionary. I was just still in the “Fake it ’til you make it” stage and doing my best. I was sincere, which I think is what came through rather than my doubts and inner conflict.
The older I got the more I realized that performing the part of faithful member was draining and I didn’t like living the double life; internal and outer. Leaving the church was freeing. Now I align more with a combination of quest and ideological orientations. I’m focused on who I am and who I want to be and I’m looking for things I can believe in that match this focus.
I’m pretty sure it won’t be religion.
@Jack, I have a hard time parsing exactly what you are trying to say in your comment. However, my sense is that the gist of what you’re trying to say is that while it’s fine to explore other belief orientations at times, at the end of the day, everyone should have an intrinsic belief orientation at their core, which is exactly what you’d expect someone with an intrinsic belief orientation to say.
mountainclimber479,
I was trying to convey the idea that faith in Christ — which is a sort of dance between belief and knowledge — transcends all of the categories in the OP. Not to say that those categories won’t persist in some measure–they will. Even so, an abiding faith in the Savior has both a spiritual and a relational aspect to it that work in spite of the various mundane approaches to belief.
@Jack, it feels to me like your idea of “faith in Christ” is really just an expression of your personal bias towards an intrinsic belief orientation. You seem to think you are expressing something that transcends or is even orthogonal to the categories of the OP, but it appears to me like you are just saying that aspects of the other 3 orientations are fine, but at the end of the day, you really ought to lean in hard to an intrinsic belief orientation. That is, for you, an intrinsic belief orientation ought to transcend the other 3 orientations. Look at the wording from your comments: “living aspect of belief that can work in the hearts of individuals” and “a sort of dance between belief and knowledge”. Those words appear to me to be descrbing someone with an intrinsic belief orientation.