Abstract
The authors wanted to investigate the structure of attitudes towards the church and religion in Austria. In particular, it seemed desirable a) to clarify the concept of religiosity on empirical grounds; b) to investigate the relations between religiosity and personality traits; c) to find deter minants for religious activities; d) to examine the role of the church and the clergy in regard to religiosity and religious activities.
417 soldiers, most of them Catholics, of the Military Force in Austria were asked to fill out both a questionnaire on attitudes towards the church and religion (178 items) and a personality-test questionnaire. The data were processed by factor-analysis, which brought nine inter pretable factors.
Religiosity was found to form one factor with nearly no relations to personality traits, except a correlation of 0.38 between religiosity and conservatism. Religiosity was shown to be only one of two dominant motives for church-going; equally important for church-going is the factor 'social contact', which shows the influence of social learning on religious activities. The church is considered both as ecclesiastical machinery with bureaucratic elements, and as an institution, which guarantees the moral standards of the society. Clergy are seen as re presentatives of the church as a big organization on the one hand, and as counselors on the other.
The sample showed in general rather favourable opinions of the church and religion; an attitude which was interpreted as 'friendly distance'.