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Assessment
name: Connection of Soul Scale (COS)
Scale
overview: The Connection
of Soul Scale (COS) is a 12-item measure of three categories of belief in the
life of one’s soul after death: Secular, God-centered, Cosmic-Spiritual
Authors: Amy L. Li et al.
Response
Type: Respondents
rate each item on a six-point scale of agreement from 0 = strongly disagree to
5 = strongly agree.
Scale
items
The 12 COS
items are associated with one of the three factors or subscales. Each subscale
has four items. The secular view reflects a lack of belief in an afterlife. The
God-centered view was designed to assess beliefs in Western ideas such as a
soul’s existence in paradise or heaven. The Cosmic- spiritual view includes
items associated with Eastern religions such as reaching enlightenment or joining
with a universal spirit.
Psychometric
properties
In their
study, Ai et al. (2014) reported data from three studies. Two studies included students
at a German University. Some of the students were from Eastern Europe. Most
were Christian. The third study was conducted in the US at a northeastern
university. Most of the US students were American women who identified as
Christian but 31% identified as agnostic.
Reported internal consistency values were good. Factor analyses supported the three factors in both German and US samples. Early support for construct validity was evident in significant relationships with various perspectives on death as well as intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness in a German sample.
Additional measures were included in the US study. For example, the Secular (negative)
and God centered (positive) views were significantly associated with the
personality trait of Agreeableness. And Openness was significantly correlated
with a God-centered view (negative) and a Cosmic-spiritual view (positive). See
Ai et al. (2014) for more details.
Availability:
The English
version is included in Ai et al. (2014). Readers may contact the authors for
the German version.
Reference
for the scale
Ai, A. L., Kastenmüller, A., Tice, T. N., Wink, P., Dillon,
M., & Frey, D. (2014). The Connection of Soul (COS) scale: An assessment
tool for afterlife perspectives in different worldviews. Psychology of
Religion and Spirituality, 6(4), 316–329. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037455
Research
note
It would be
interesting to learn how the measure would function with a sample of people
from other religions. In addition, the traditional Christian view is that after
life people live on not as disembodied souls but in new bodies thus, the
wording may not be appropriate for Christians holding traditional beliefs.
Reference
for using scales in research:
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Reference
for clinicians on understanding assessment
Buy Applied Statistics for Counselors
Resource Link: A – Z Test Index
NOTICE:
The
information about scales and measures is provided for clinicians and
researchers based on professional publications. The links to authors,
materials, and references can change. You may be able to locate details by
contacting the main author of the original article or another author on the
article list.
Post Author
Geoffrey W. Sutton PhD is
Emeritus Professor of Psychology who publishes book and articles about clinical
and social psychology including the psychology of religion. Website: www.suttong.com
Books available on AMAZON and the GOOGLE STORE
Connections
FACEBOOK Geoff
W. Sutton
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Read many published articles
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