Assessment, Statistics, and Research

  Assessment names: Peace Evaluation Across Cultures and Environments (PEACE) Scale overview:   The PEACE scale is a five-point Likert-type scale consisting of seven subscales derived from 41 items. The research team developed a working definition of peace: A feeling of calm and/or freedom from struggles within self and others in a non-violent environment where hope outweighs resignation. ”   Response Type: The items are rated on a scale assessing the degree to which a statement is true about the participant: Not at all true, A little true, Moderately true, Quite a bit true, and Completely true. Subscales: There are seven subscales each having six items except Basic Needs, which has five items. The seven subscales are organized according to two factors. The subscales are listed below along with Cronbach’s Alpha values.    Psychological Factor Emotional tone, 0.83 Agency,   0.72 Hope,   0.73 Tolerance,   0.65    Social / Environmental Factor Basic Needs,   0.69

  Scale name: Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test-Short Form (GRAT-S) Scale overview: The short form of the Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test (GRAT-S) is a self-report measure, which consists of 16 items assessing trait gratitude. The original GRAT scale by Watkins et al. (2003) consisted of 44 items rated on a five-point scale of agreement. The 16-item short form (GRAT-S) was used by Watkins et al. (2017) in a study about joy and gratitude. Response Type: The 16 items are rated on a 9-point scale of agreement from 1 = I strongly disagree to 9 = I strongly agree with the statement. Sample Scale items 1. I couldn't have gotten where I am today without the help of many people. 6. I really don't think that I've gotten all the good things that I deserve in life. (Reverse score)   Reliability: Watkins et al. (2017) reported GRAT-S Cronbach’s alpha = .84. Validity: The GRAT-S was positively correlated with the State Joy Scale and the Dispos

In this post, I refer to a set of items to assess gratitude. The  Gratitude Questionnaire  uses six items and was published by McCullough, Emmons, and Tsang in 2002. I have written elsewhere about gratitude . People high in the virtue of gratitude are often high in other virtues as well such as optimism and life satisfaction. They also tend to be more religious. In a previous post, The Psychology of Gratitude , I list some suggestions to increase gratitude. Reliability In previous research, the authors found support for one factor. Coefficient alpha , a measure of interitem consistency, ranged from .76 to .84 in samples reported by the authors  (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; McCullough, Tsang, & Emmons, 2002). Rating the Scale Items When using the scale in surveys the items are rated on a 7-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). High scores indicate a higher level of self-reported gratitude. Here's the 7-point rating: 1 = strongly

Lions of Kruger/ Geoff Sutton 2009 Courage is a virtue. Despite being an ancient virtue, courage is a relatively new topic of study in psychological science. As with any psychological concept, definitions can vary. Woodward and his colleagues have begun a line of inquiry, which includes a measurement scale. Here’s a 2007 definition: “Courage is the voluntary willingness to act, with or without varying levels of fear, in response to a threat to achieve an important, perhaps moral, outcome or goal. (p. 136)”      Read more about the psychology of courage. Factor analysis suggested participants identified three types of threats: Physical, social, and emotional. When scale items were analyzed, four factors emerged, which were categorized by the authors as follows: 1. work/employment courage 2. patriotic/religion/belief-based courage 3. social-moral courage 4. independent or family-based courage 23-item Measure A popular measure of courage is the

Recently, I read a Gallup survey reporting the views of Americans about ethics and honesty of people in various professions. In a sense, the findings indicate how much Americans trust the people in the professions. Nurses won the top spot at 84% "very high" ratings—they have been #1 for 15 years in a row. Clergy are in the middle at 44% and Members of Congress at the bottom of their list at 8%.   Read the survey for more details of this 2017 study. I was surprised by the clergy data. And found another survey, which produced similar results in the UK. The Ipsos MORI poll reported that school-age children highly trusted doctors to tell the truth (88%). But clergy came in at 46%, which is below Scientists at 53%. Levels of trust can vary. And trust can be defined in different ways. How do you measure trust? I found two short trust scales at the Fetzer organization, which are available in a pdf document (see below). You will find references to studies in a