Assessment, Statistics, and Research

  Assessment name: Belief in God Scale Scale overview: The Belief in God Scale evaluates a person's belief in God and thoughts about God. Authors: D. Randles et al. (2015). Response Type: Items are rated on a scale of how strongly they affirm each statement. Scale items Four items assess participants’ belief in God and thoughts about God.   Availability: The four items can be found in PsycTESTS.   References for the scale Randles, D., Inzlicht, M., Proulx, T., Tullett, A. M., & Heine, S. J. (2015). Belief in God Scale [Database record]. Retrieved from PsycTESTS . doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/t41735-000     Randles, Daniel, Inzlicht, Michael, Proulx, Travis, Tullett, Alexa M., & Heine, Steven J. (2015). Is dissonance reduction a special case of fluid compensation? Evidence that dissonant cognitions cause compensatory affirmation and abstraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 108 (5), 697-710. doi: https://dx.d...

  Assessment name: The God Image Scales (GIS) Scale overview: The God Image Scales (GIS) are a collection of six scales in a 72-item format.   Author : Richard T. Lawrence   Response Type: Items are rated on a 4-point Likert-type scale of agreement. Six Scales Lawrence grouped the 72 items into six subscales listed below. The number following the scale is the Cronbach’s alpha value from Lawrence (1997). Presence .95 Challenge   .81 Acceptance   .83 Benevolence   .84 Influence .89 Providence   .89   Reliability: The Cronbach’s alpha values follow the scale name in the list of six scales. Validity: Based on Lawrence (1997), factor analysis revealed overlap among the six scales. All six scales were positively correlated with a measure of intrinsic religious orientation ranging from .56 for Benevolence to .82 for Presence.   The correlations with church attendance were also positive and ranged from .36 to .54. ...

  Scale name: Attitudes and Experiences of Evangelical Christians with Mental Distress Scale overview: Lloyd and Waller (2020) used nine items to assess the relationship of spiritual etiology to mental distress in a British sample ( n = 446).   Response Type and items: The 9-questions were organized into three groups. Respondents were presented with different response options depending on the question. 1. Spiritualization of Mental Distress 1-4 Example: Has your current or previous church or related teaching taught that mental distress was the result of demons, spirits or generational curses? Response options were yes, no, or unsure. 2. Views on secular/psychological treatments 5 – 7. Example: 5. Do you believe psychological treatments, such as therapy, can be successful in treating mental distress? Response options were yes, no, or unsure. Questions 6-7 asked about church support. 3. Interaction with the Church community 8-9 Example: Overall, how do you...

Completing a set of scales is not always the best way to assess spirituality at the beginning of psychotherapy. Nevertheless, I agree with others (e.g., Richards, et al., 2015; Worthington et al., 1996) that the assessment of spirituality is important to counseling and psychotherapy because so many people report that their faith is important to them and many prefer to receive psychotherapy from someone who shares their faith or at least respects their faith. The assessment of spirituality in the context of psychotherapy should also be in the context of other assessment such as within the SCOPES model where spirituality, if important to a patient, is usually a part of the self-identity and interconnected with their emotions, thoughts, social relationships, and personality ( See the SCOPES model for details ). In this post, I will review suggestions from Richards et al. (2015) and include a link to other posts containing measures from which clinicians can draw questions to use in clinic...

  Scale name: Measure of Atheist Discrimination Experiences Scale overview: The 24-item Measure of Atheist Discrimination Experiences (MADE) was designed to evaluate the stress experiences of people who identify as atheists using a 6-point rating scale. Authors: Brewster, M. E., Hammer, J., Sawyer, J. S., Eklund, A., & Palamar, J. Response Type:   6-point Likert-type; 1 = never, 6 = almost all of the time Subscales: There are five factors Immoral Bringing Shame Asked to Pass Overt Maltreatment Social Ostracism   Sample items Immoral - I have been told that, as an atheist, I cannot be a moral person.   Bringing Shame - I have been told that I am selfish because I am atheist.   Asked to Pass - I have been asked to go along with religious traditions to avoid “stirring up trouble.”   Overt Maltreatment - People have denied me services because of my atheism.   Social Ostracism - Because of my atheism, others h...

  Scale name: Partner-Focused Prayer Measure Scale overview: The Partner-Focused Prayer Measure is a 4-item, 5-point rating scale evaluating the frequency of prayer for one’s partner as a part of a study relating partner prayer to infidelity. Authors: Frank D. Fincham and Nathaniel M. Lambert, The Florida State University, Steven R. H. Beach, University of Georgia Response Type : The Partner-Focused Prayer Measure uses a 5 point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very frequently). Sample items : 3. I ask God to watch over my partner. 4. I pray for my partner to reach his/her goals Reliability: Alpha = .96. Validity: The content of the scale appears to accomplish its purpose and it was useful in the study. Availability: The full set of 4 items is on page 2 of the PsycTESTS entry. Permissions Test content may be reproduced and used for non-commercial research and educational purposes without seeking written permission. Distribution must be controlled, meaning...