ADJECTIVE RATINGS OF GOD

Variable:

The purpose of the Adjective Ratings of God Scale is to push beyond the vague (but often asked) survey question, “Do you believe in God?” In particular, the scale measures specific concepts regarding the type of God (e.g., kindly, wrathful, etc.) in whom belief is placed.

Description:

Two primary theories were ex­plored as potential bases for these percep­tions. One (Spilka, Armatas, & Nussbaum, 1964) focused on the usefulness of anthro­pomorphic characterizations of God. Re­ searchers used 63 adjectives to derive five factors descriptive of a religious individ­ual’s God perceptions (stern father, imper­sonal, kindly father, “omni-ness,” and scales are easily extractable and are readily related to other constructs (e.g., intrinsic-ex­trinsic, etc.).

Norms/Standardization:

Responses were initially obtained from 585 undergraduate students (234 females, 351 males). The sample was moderately religious (29% at­ tended services at least once per week) and primarily Christian Protestant (77%).

Reliability:

The five final subscales evi­denced high to moderately high reliabilities:

The other (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957) stressed linguistic characteristics of frequently used adjectives (e.g., good vs. bad). Working under the Semantic Differen­tial rubric, 28 adjectives were reduced to Traditional Christian Deisticness Wrathfulness Omni-ness Irrelevancy

• .94
• .71
• .83
• .89
• .491

three factors associated with the linguistic properties of adjectives (evaluation: good vs. bad; potency: strong vs. weak; and activ­ity: active vs. passive).

To these 91 words, Gorsuch added nine marker items (eight random variables and one denoting sex); the nine additional items are not a part of the final scale. Words were rated: (a) “the word does not describe ‘God,”‘ (b) “the word describes ‘God,”‘ and Ultimately, eight first-order, two second­ order, and one third-order potentially corre­lated factors were determined. From among the general items composing each dimen­sion, Gorsuch isolated items on 5 of the l l factors to construct reliable subscales. These five subscales compose the overall scale and consist of the following; Tradi­tional Christian

• Items 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10,
• II, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34,
• 35,37,38,40,42,44,45,46,48,50,51,53,
• 54,56,57,58,59,62,63,65,66,68, 74, 75,
• 76, 78, 79, 82, 85, 86, 88); Deisticness
• (Items 18, 39, 41, 55, 60); Wrathfulness
• (Items 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 36, 43, 64, 70, 71,
• 76, 81, 90); Omni-ness (Items 42, 56, 57,
• ; and Irrelevancy (Items 24, 28, 87, 89).

Practical Considerations:

Completion time for this paper-and-pencil instrument is ap­ proximately 5-10 minutes. The five final

Eighty-five males randomly selected from the original sample and set aside as a cross­ validation sample displayed similar results.

Two unpublished studies that have re­cently utilized the adjective checklist items (Fairchild et al., 1993, Sundin, Ladd, & Spilka, 1995) offer further support. Reliabil­ities for the scales in college student sam­ples of 116 (Fairchild et al., 1993) and 149 (Sundinet al., 1995) respondents, respec­tively, were as follows:

• Traditional Christian .83 .94
• Deisticness .65 .71
• Wrathfulness .89 .79
• Omni-ness .69 .86
• Kindliness2 .94 .95

These two studies with only moderate sample sizes did not attempt confirmatory factoring of the scales, nor did they treat “traditional Christian” as a higher order fac­ tor. Although the basic scales extracted appear solid, a full replication has not been conducted.

1 A lack of variance on responses to items in this scale severely attentuated reliability estimates.

2 The scale “kindliness” was not one of Gorsuch ‘s sug­gested scales, although it was present as a first order factor; it was used for heuristic purposes, even as “irrelevancy” was not used since that scale did not pertain to the research in question.

Validity:

Overall, support was lacking for a purely semantic differential explanation of God concepts. The five factor finding of Spilka et al. (1964) was, however, essen­tially replicated, albeit in complex relation to Osgood et al. (1957). This replication suggests that the factors in question appear consistently. What remains is to compare di­rectly the Gorsuch scales with others that purport to measure similar constructs.

Religious Concept Survey

The following is a survey to determine what descriptive words apply to God. Please print a “l,” “2,” or “3” on the line before each word according to how well you think it describes what the term “God” means to you. There are no right or wrong answers; we are interested in what this concept means to each person. Use the following scale:

• 1. The word does not describe “God.”
  2. The word describes “God.”
  3. The word describes “God” particularly well.

1. Absolute
2. Critical
3. Faithful
4. Gracious
5. Active
6. Cruel
7. False
8. Guiding
9. All-wise
10. Damning
11. Fast
12. Hard
13. Avenging
14. Dangerous
15. Fatherly
16. Helpful
17. Blessed
18. Demanding
19. Fearful
20. Holy
21. Blunt
22. Democratic
23. Feeble
24. hnpersonal
25. Charitable
26. Distant
27. Firm
28. Important
29. Comforting
30. Divine
31. Forgiving
32. Inaccessible
33. Considerate
34. Eternal
35. Formal
36. Infinite
37. Controlling
38. Everlasting
39. Gentle
40. Jealous
41. Creative
42. Fair
43. Glorious
44. Just
45. Kind
46. Omnipresent
47. Safe
48. Tough
49. Kingly
50. Omniscient
51. Severe
52. True
53. Lenient
54. Patient
55. Sharp
56. Loving
57. Passive
58. Slow
59. Majestic
60. Permissive
61. Soft
62. Matchless
63. Powerful
64. Sovereign
65. Meaningful
66. Protective
67. Steadfast
68. Meek
69. Punishing
70. Stern
71. Merciful
72. Real
73. Still
74. Moving
75. Redeeming
76. Strong
77. Mythical
78. Restrictive
79. Supporting
80. Omnipotent
81. Righteous
82. Timely
83. Unchanging
84. Unyielding
85. Valuable
86.  Vigorous
87. Weak
88. Warm
89. Worthless
90.  Wrathful
91.  Yielding

Location:

Subsequent Research:

References