Assessment, Statistics, and Research

  Assessment name:   Belief in Pure Evil Scale (BPE) Scale overview: The Belief in Pure Evil scale is a 22-item self-report rating scale indicating perceptions of evil based on the theorizing of Baumeister (1999). Authors: Webster, Russell J. & Saucier, Donald A Response Type: Participants rate the items on a 7-point scale of agreement from 1 (disagree very strongly) to 7 (agree very strongly). Scale items : There are 22 items on the scale. Each item is associated with a component of pure evil . Following is a list of the components of pure evil assessed by the scale.   General   Intentional Harm   Joy of Harm   Understanding evil   Low self-control   Egotism   Eternal/Disposition   Antithesis of Peace Psychometric properties The authors provided descriptive statistics and evidence for internal consistency along with early evidence for validity based on correlations with measures of related v...

  Cards and God/ 2023 by Geoffrey W Sutton & Bing AI Assessment name:   Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS) Scale overview: The Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale is a 24-item measurement of the sacredness of moral values. Each item is rated on an 8-point scale of value. Authors: Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt Response Type: An 8-point value rating scale First, participants receive instructions: Try to imagine actually doing the following things, and indicate how much money someone would have to pay you (anonymously and secretly) to be willing to do each thing. For each action, assume that nothing bad would happen to you afterward. Also assume that you cannot use the money to make up for your action. Then, they read brief scenarios and provide a response by rating the scenarios on an 8-point scale of dollar values: ranging from 1 = $0 (I’d do it for free); 2 = $10; 3 = $100; 4 = $1,000; 5 = $10,000; 6 = $100,000; 7 = $1 million; to 8 = never, for any a...

  Assessment name:   Religious Belief Salience (RBS) Scale overview: The Religious Belief Salience measure is a five-item measure of religiosity. Blaine and Crocker adapted an older scale developed by King and Hunt (Religiosity Salience-Cognition Scale, 1975) by removing three items. Authors: Bruce Blaine and Jennifer Crocker Response Type: A 7-point rating scale of agreement: 1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree Scale items The items include references to religious beliefs and a meaningful life, the influence of religious beliefs on one’s life, and the personal importance of religion. Psychometric properties Cronbach’s Alpha = .94 Means and Standard Deviations are included for the sample of American undergraduates. The RBS was positively correlated with measures of Satisfaction with Life and Wellbeing and negatively correlated with measures of Depression and Hopelessness. The correlations were significant.   Availability: The full set ...

  Assessment name:   Scale of Religious Cultural Consonance Scale overview: The Scale of Religious Cultural Consonance is a 27-item measure of the cultural expectations of a religious group. Respondents indicate their self-rating on a 4-point scale, which will result in a measure of consonance with the cultural expectations. In the study, the list reflected expectations of Brazilian Pentecostals. Author: H.J. François Dengah II Response Type and item content: The response types are 4-point ratings with different anchors appropriate to the item content. Items 1- 16: A scale of agreement with descriptions of religious life Items 17 – 25 a scale of frequency of religious practices Item 26 a scale of activeness in church Item 27 a scale of strength of testimony Psychometric properties The article includes basic descriptive statistics of means and standard deviations. Cronbach’s Alpha was 0.84. Availability: The items can be found in the article found in...

  Assessment name:      God and the Devil’s Ability to Influence One’s Conscience Scale overview: Two items measure beliefs about the ability of God and the devil to influence one’s conscience. Authors: W A Schutt & J J Exline, 2023 Response Type: A five choice rating scale of degree of influence: 1. no, definitely not 2. probably not 3. not sure 4. probably 5. yes, definitely Scale items: Item one asks about God’s ability to influence one’s conscience and item two asks about the power of the devil or demons to influence one’s conscience. Psychometric properties     God item M 3.31 and SD = 1.49   Devil item M 2.21 and SD = 1.26 The authors reported concurrent validity in a table of correlations with related measures. They also presented a model linking the beliefs with other conscience-related measures. Their measure of religiosity was Religious Belief Salience. Availability: The items are available on page 16 ...