SACRED EMOTIONS SCALE Donna Christine Burdzy A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2014 Committee: Kenneth I. Pargament, Advisor Howard Casey Cromwell Harold Rosenberg © 2014 Donna Burdzy All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Kenneth I. Pargament, Advisor The content of holy texts, the writings of religious figures, and documented accounts of ordinary people’s varied experiences suggest that encounters with the sacred are characterized by distinctive emotional responses. Research on the internal aspects of religion and spirituality is limited in part by the difficulty in defining, measuring and validating constructs that represent such a highly subjective and individualized experience. There exists, accordingly, little empirically derived evidence that might contribute to an understanding of the nature of emotional responses to sacred moments. The need for greater attention regarding the nature of people’s psychological experience associated with sacred moments becomes particularly apparent when we consider that many individuals believe their inner relationship with the sacred lies at the heart of their spiritual and religious lives. This study describes the development and the initial testing of a sacred emotions scale (SES) which is intended to measure the emotional impact of an individual’s experience of the sacred. The study’s findings provide encouraging evidence for the use of the SES along with its two sub-scales as a measure of the emotions associated with religious and spiritual experiences. The preliminary evidence suggests the presence of a common set of emotional responses to the experience of the sacred separate and distinct from people’s cognitive understanding of their religious beliefs. These results provide support for a more phenomenological definition of people's religious and spiritual lives which deemphasizes distinctions due to religious beliefs and affiliations. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 The Sacred ............................................................................................................ 1 Emotional Responses ................................................................................................ 3 Present Study ............................................................................................................ 5 Rudolf Otto ............................................................................................................ 6 Research on Religion and Emotion............................................................................ 11 Sacred Emotions Scale (SES) ................................................................................... 15 Content and Structure of SES ........................................................................ 15 Correlating Factors......................................................................................... 17 Rational and Non-Rational Thinking ............................................................ 18 Religious Orientation .................................................................................... 19 Personality Factors ........................................................................................ 20 Religious Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction ................................................. 21 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 23 Participants ............................................................................................................ 23 Method ............................................................................................................ 24 Sample Characteristics............................................................................................... 25 Measures ............................................................................................................ 26 Sacred Emotions Scale................................................................................... 26 Rational-Experiential Inventory – 40............................................................. 27 Measure of Personality .................................................................................. 28 v Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)................................................................ 29 The Spiritual Well-Being Scale .................................................................... 29 The Satisfaction with Life Scale.................................................................... 30 Statistical Analyses ................................................................................................... 30 Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 30 Factor Analysis ............................................................................................. 30 Regression Analysis....................................................................................... 31 RESULTS ...... ....................................................................................................................... 32 Data Review ............................................................................................................ 32 Exploratory Factor Analysis ..................................................................................... 33 Internal Consistency and Descriptive Statistics......................................................... 36 T-TESTs and ANOVAs............................................................................................. 38 Correlational and Regression Analyses ..................................................................... 39 Responses to Open-Ended Questions about the Sacred Experience.......................... 43 Sacred encounters involving a deity .............................................................. 44 Sacred encounters not involving a deity. ....................................................... 44 Sacred encounters that occurred during religious practices........................... 44 Sacred encounters that did not occur during religious practices.................... 44 DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................................... 46 Limitations and Future Directions ............................................................................. 56 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................. 60 APPENDIX A. MECHANICAL TURK SCREENING PAGE ........................................... 84 vi APPENDIX B. SACRED EMOTIONS SCALE.................................................................. 85 APPENDIX C. INSTRUCTRIONS FOR RECALLING A SACRED ENCOUNTER. ...... 87 APPENDIX D. ENCOUNTER DETAIL QUESTIONS, AFTER LEVINE ET AL. (2009) ............................................................................. 88 APPENDIX E. RATIONAL-EXPERIENTIAL INVENTORY........................................... 90 APPENDIX F. BIG FIVE INVENTORY (JOHN ET AL., 1991) ....................................... 92 APPENDIX G. THE SATISFACTION WITH LIFE SCALE (SWLS; DIENER ET AL., 1985) ............................................................... 93 APPENDIX H. EXTRINSIC/INTRINSIC RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION SCALE (GORSUCH & MCPHERSON, 1989) ....................................................... 94 APPENDIX I. QUEST ORIENTATION SCALE (BATSON & SCHOENRADE, 1991) .. 95 APPENDIX J. HSRB APPROVAL LETTER...................................................................... 96 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1 Summary of sample characteristics....................................................................... 72 2 Summary of religious characteristics of sample. ....................................................... 73 3 Factor loadings and communalities ........................................................................... 74 4 Final factor items ....................................................................................................... 76 5 Descriptive statistics .................................................................................................. 78 6 Scale correlations....................................................................................................... 80 7 Regression analyses ................................................................................................... 81 1 INTRODUCTION The Sacred The concept of the sacred lies at the heart of the human experience of the divine. People often view their inner relationship with what they perceive as sacred as the essence of their spiritual and religious lives. This thesis will examine whether there are specific emotions that typify the affective component of individuals’ psychological experience of the sacred. This attempt to understand the nature of people’s affective experiences of the sacred will focus on people’s perception of the sacred. It is in no way an effort to determine the nature of the divine and makes no ontological assumptions about the sacred. This thesis will propose and test an empirically derived construct and self-report measure representing