Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS)

Abstract

The Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS; Shannonhouse et al., 2023) is a self-reported instrument designed to assess the unique and distinct religious coping practice of spiritual surrender to God. This scale is grounded in theological and psychological literature, with its construction involving an initial generation of 52 items. These items were developed to reflect spiritual surrender as an active and conscious choice when facing adversity, within the context of a loving God. Following expert review and cognitive interviewing, which focused on item comprehension, recall, judgment, and response, the pool was refined to 17 items. These items then underwent psychometric evaluation using multiple samples of adult, Christian participants in the US who had experienced suffering. Participants, recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and Prolific, completed the measure through an online survey questionnaire. The findings supported the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the final 10-item CSSS. While limitations included the potential for “double-barreled” items, the authors noted that this complexity is inherent to the construct of spiritual surrender itself.

Keywords

Adversity, Christian Spiritual Surrender, Christianity, Christians, Face Validity, Incremental Validity, Negative Life Events, Religious Coping, Spiritual Surrender, Suffering, Life Experiences, Religious Beliefs, Religious Practices, Stress, Stress and Coping Measures, Coping Style, Religion and Spirituality Measures

Authors

Laura Shannonhouse, Jason McMartin, Shane J. Sacco, M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall, Crystal L. Park, Dahee Kim, Eric Silverman, Kelly Kapic, Jamie Aten

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Purpose

This instrument assesses the self-reported use of the emic, Christian, conceptualization of spiritual surrender as a coping strategy when individuals face negative life events.

Validity

Face/Content Validity: Face and content validity were established through feedback from experts and participants, who were representative of diverse Christian traditions and involved in cognitive interviewing.
Construct Validity: Construct validity was established based on the findings from factor analysis and the pattern of correlations with both conceptually related and unrelated constructs.
Convergent Validity: The CSSS demonstrated a positive correlation with intrinsic religiosity and a negative correlation with both anxious and avoidant insecure attachment to God.
Discriminant Validity: The CSSS showed a small correlation with the Passive Religious Deferral Scale of the Religious Coping Scale (RCOPE; Pargament et al., 2000).
Incremental Validity: The CSSS exhibited incremental validity with respect to satisfaction with life and positive feelings. It also narrowly missed significance with negative feelings, suggesting that while the CSSS overlaps with existing measures, it offers a distinct conceptualization.

Reliability

Internal Consistency: The Cronbach’s 𝛼 for the CSSS demonstrated strong internal consistency, with a value of .93.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): The initial EFA conducted on all 17 items revealed a single factor that accounted for 53.82% of the variance, with factor loadings ranging from .56 to .81. Following a review of factor loadings and in an effort to shorten the measure, seven items were removed based on theoretical considerations, including those identified as problematic during cognitive interviewing. A second EFA, performed on the remaining 10 items, also indicated a one-factor solution, which explained a total of 56.69% of the overall variance after extraction. All 10 items had loadings greater than .50.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): The CFA for the one-factor solution demonstrated a good fit with the data: 𝜒²(35) = 51.56, p < .05, CFI = .995, RMSEA = .04 [0.01, 0.06], SRMR = .02. The loadings for all items ranged from 0.79 to 0.88.

Instrument: Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS)

Test Type: Original
Format: Items on the CSSS are rated on a scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The administration method is electronic.
Language Available: English
Population Group: Human (Male and Female)
Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older), including Young Adulthood (18-29 years), Thirties (30-39 years), Middle Age (40-64 years), and Aged (65 years and older).
Population Details: The study participants were Christian individuals located in the United States.
Test Methodology: Test Validity, Construct Validity, Content Validity, Convergent Validity, Discriminant Validity, Test Reliability, Internal Consistency, Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis.

Keywords

Adversity, Christian Spiritual Surrender, Christianity, Christians, Face Validity, Incremental Validity, Negative Life Events, Religious Coping, Spiritual Surrender, Suffering

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Authors

Laura Shannonhouse

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6822-8763

• Affiliation: Georgia State University, Department of Counseling and Psychological Services

• Email Address: [email protected]

• Correspondence Address: Georgia State University, Department of Counseling and Psychological Services, 30 Pryor Street, Suite 950, Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 30303, [email protected]

Jason McMartin

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0075-1018

• Affiliation: Biola University, Rosemead School of Psychology

• Email Address: No data is Available

Shane J. Sacco

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4920-8219

• Affiliation: University of Connecticut, Department of Allied Health Sciences

• Email Address: No data is Available

M. Elizabeth Lewis Hall

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6342-4340

• Affiliation: Biola University, Rosemead School of Psychology

• Email Address: No data is Available

Crystal L. Park

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6572-7321

• Affiliation: University of Connecticut, Department of Psychological Sciences

• Email Address: No data is Available

Dahee Kim

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4376-9536

• Affiliation: University of Connecticut, Department of Psychological Sciences

• Email Address: No data is Available

Eric Silverman

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7763-2100

• Affiliation: Christopher Newport University, Department of Philosophy and Religion

• Email Address: No data is Available

Kelly Kapic

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7442-7953

• Affiliation: Covenant College, Biblical and Theological Studies

• Email Address: No data is Available

Jamie Aten

• Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1340-2546

• Affiliation: Wheaton College, Humanitarian Disaster Institute

• Email Address: No data is Available

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: May be used for Research/Teaching.
Commercial Use: No
Fee: No
Test Year: 2023

References

Shannonhouse, L., McMartin, J., Sacco, S. J., Hall, M. E. L., Park, C. L., Kim, D., Silverman, E., Kapic, K., & Aten, J. (2024). Spiritual surrender: Measurement of an emic Christian religious coping strategy. Spirituality in Clinical Practice, 11(2), 173–185. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000314

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Items of the Christian Spiritual Surrender Scale (CSSS)

1. I actively chose to turn my suffering over to God because I knew God loved me.

2. I turned my troubles over to God while I actively tried to live out God’s plan.

3. Knowing that God is with me and for me helped me turn my troubles over to God.

4. I actively chose to put my troubles in the hands of God while I continued to work on what I had control over.

5. When I had no control, I surrendered my suffering to God, because I trusted in God.

6. I turned my troubles over to God in trust when I was hurting.

7. Even though my circumstances weren’t what I wanted them to be, I continued to trust God and God’s plan for my life.

8. When I was in trouble, I entrusted myself to God’s care while I continued to do all I could.

9. I wanted what God wanted for me more than what I wanted for myself, which helped me put my troubles in God’s hands.

10. When circumstances were hard, I asked God to help me accept God’s plan for my life.

Note: Items on the CSSS are rated from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree).