the Manifestation Scale

Description

The Manifestation Scale (Dixon, Hornsey, & Hartley, 2025) is designed to assess an individual’s perceived capacity to attract success in life through positive self-talk, visualization, and symbolic actions, such as acting as if something is already true. The development of the scale involved a comprehensive literature review and several pilot studies. The 11-item instrument was evaluated using samples of community members recruited through Prolific Academic, with the results of factor analysis, reliability, and validity analyses being reported. (Database Record (c) 2025, all rights reserved)

Author: Dixon, Lucas J.; Hornsey, Matthew J.; Hartley, Nicole
Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available
Affiliation:

• Dixon, Lucas J.: University of Queensland

• Hornsey, Matthew J.: University of Queensland

• Hartley, Nicole: University of Queensland

Email: Dixon, Lucas J.: [email protected]
Files: No file is available

Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author

Correspondence Address: Dixon, Lucas J.: University of Queensland, Business School, 37 Blair Drive, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia, 4072, [email protected]

Test Year: 2025

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Manifestation Scale is to explore the psychology of individuals who endorse manifestation beliefs.

Validity

The scale has undergone content and construct validity assessments.

• Content Validity: The authors consulted five experts in magical beliefs, decision-making, and/or scale development to determine content validity. Their feedback guided adjustments to the wording of items related to external powers, refining them to better represent manifestation specifically.

• Construct Validity: The Manifestation Scale showed a large bivariate association with intuitive decision-making style (r = .36), a moderate association with core self-evaluations (r = .25), and no significant association with rational decision-making style (r = .02) or deferred gratification (r = −.04).

Reliability

The reliability of the Manifestation Scale has been evaluated through internal consistency and test-retest reliability measures.

• Internal Consistency: The Personal Power (alpha = .93) and Cosmic Collaboration (alpha = .94) subscales demonstrated excellent reliability coefficients. The 11 items of the higher-order scale also exhibited excellent reliability when entered together (alpha = .95).

• Test-Retest Reliability: Spearman-Brown reliability coefficients for two time points separated by a 3-week interval were .91 for the higher-order Manifestation Scale, .88 for the Personal Power subscale, and .92 for the Cosmic Collaboration subscale.

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis was conducted to examine the underlying structure of the Manifestation Scale.

• Exploratory Factor Analysis: Principal axis factor analysis with oblimin rotation revealed two factors with eigenvalues above 1.00. These factors explained 73% of variance in manifestation belief and were highly correlated (0.71), suggesting both factors represented one higher order construct.

• Confirmatory Factor Analysis: The two-factor solution performed better than the one-factor solution. The two-factor solution showed a generally acceptable goodness of fit, with the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) falling just outside of acceptable model fit (.09) based on Browne and Cudeck’s (1992) criteria. When including error co-variances between one set of items within each factor (modification indices = 24.40, 9.05) the RMSEA reduced to .08. Latent variable factor loadings for individual items ranged from .72 to .94.

Test Methodology

The study incorporated various test methodologies to assess the psychometric properties of the scale, including:

• Test Validity

• Construct Validity

• Content Validity

• Test Reliability

• Internal Consistency

• Test-Retest Reliability

• Factor Analysis

• Confirmatory Factor Analysis

• Exploratory Factor Analysis

Population Details

• Population Group: Human; Male; Female

• Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older)

• Respondents: Community Members

• Location: United States

Test Type

Original

Instrument Type

Inventory/Questionnaire

Format

Participants are introduced to the scale with the following instructions: “We’re interested in beliefs you may hold about how you achieve success in your life. Please rate how much you agree/disagree that each statement reflects a belief that you hold.” They then indicate their agreement on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Administration Method: Electronic

Language Available

English

Language Present: English

Keywords

Cosmic Collaboration; Personal Power; Manifestation Beliefs; Magical Thinking

Index Terms: Magical Thinking; Personality Measures; Wishful Thinking

Items of the Manifestation Scale

Number of items: This is an 11-item scale.

Factors and Subscales: Subscales: Personal power; Cosmic collaboration.

Test Items Available: No

Fee

No

Commercial: No

References

Dixon, L. J., Hornsey, M. J., & Hartley, N. (2025). “The Secret” to success? The psychology of belief in manifestation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 51(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231181162