Measuring Cross-Cultural Supernatural Beliefs with Self- and Peer-Reports. Research data from the Croatian sample.
Personality PsychologyAuthors(s) / Creator(s)
Bluemke, MatthiasJong, Jonathan
Grevenstein, Dennis
Mikloušić, Igor
Halberstadt, Jamin
Abstract
Despite claims about the universality of religious belief, whether religiosity scales have the same meaning when administered inter-subjectively – or translated and applied cross-culturally – is currently unknown. Using the recent “Supernatural Belief Scale” (SBS), we present a primer on how to verify the strong assumptions of measurement invariance required in research on religion. A comparison of two independent samples, Croatians and New Zealanders, showed that, despite a sophisticated psychometric model, measurement invariance could be demonstrated for the SBS except for two noninvariant intercepts. We present a new approach for inspecting measurement invariance across self- and peer-reports as two dependent samples. Although supernatural beliefs may be hard to observe in others, the measurement model was fully invariant for Croatians and their nominated peers. The results not only establish, for the first time, a valid measure of religious supernatural belief across two groups of different language and culture, but also demonstrate a general invariance test for distinguishable dyad members nested within the same targets. More effort needs to be made to design and validate cross-culturally applicable measures of religiosity.
Persistent Identifier
https://doi.org/10.5160/psychdata.bems99me29Year of Publication
2016Funding
Citation
Study Description
Research Questions/Hypotheses:
Research Design:
Fully Standardized Survey Instrument (provides question formulation and answer options); single measurement
Measurement Instruments/Apparatus:
Supernatural Belief Scale (SBS). The SBS is a 10-item scale intended to measure cross-culturally recurring supernatural entities such as belief in high-order agents (God), low-order agents (angels), spiritual world (souls), afterlife conceptions (heaven), inexplicable events (miracles) and spiritual intermediaries (prophets); the present investigation focused on a Croatian translation of the original English SBS created in New Zealand (Jong, Bluemke, & Halberstadt, 2013).
Data Collection Method:
Data collection in the presence of an experimenter
- Individual Administration
- Paper and Pencil
Data collection in the absence of an experimenter
- Other: Paper & Pencil (sealed enveloped)
Population:
Croatian college students and relatives, friends, peers
Survey Time Period:
Sample:
Convenience sample
Gender Distribution:
69% female subjects (n=443)
29.6% male subjects (n=190)
1.4% missing values (undetermined) (n=9)
Age Distribution: 18-50 years
Spatial Coverage (Country/Region/City): Croatia
Subject Recruitment:
Sample Size:
642 individuals
Return/Drop Out:
MD5: 2f7455c2bfa5a73af85d8ad4a982a50e
| Position | Name | Label | Valid Values | Missing Values |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CODE | Participant number | 1000-1661 "CODE" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 2 | SEX | Sex | 1 "Female" 2 "Male" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 3 | AGE | Age | 18-50 "age" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 4 | RELIGION | Religion | 1 "Christian" 2 "Atheist/Agnostic" 3 "Other" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 5 | RELIGION_IMPORTANCE | Religion Importance | 1 "Very unimportant" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "" 5 "" 6 "" 7 "" 8 "" 9 "Very important" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 6 | GOD | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 1 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 7 | DEVIL | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 2 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 8 | ANGELS | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 3 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 9 | DEMONS | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 4 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 10 | SOUL | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 5 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 11 | REALM | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 6 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 12 | HEAVEN | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 7 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 13 | HELL | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 8 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 14 | MIRACLES | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 9 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 15 | PROPHETS | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 10 self | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 16 | MASS | Attends the Holy Mass | 1 "Never" 2 "Less than once a year" 3 "At least once a year" 4 "At least once a month" 5 "At least once a week" 6 "Every day" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 17 | COMMUNION | Attends Holy Communion | 1 "Never" 2 "Less than once a year" 3 "At least once a year" 4 "At least once a month" 5 "At least once a week" 6 "Every day" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 18 | PRAYER | Prays | 1 "Never" 2 "Less than once a year" 3 "At least once a year" 4 "At least once a month" 5 "At least once a week" 6 "Every day" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 19 | RELIGION_PEER | Religion Peer | 1 "Christian" 2 "Atheist/Agnostic" 3 "Other" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 20 | GOD_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 1 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 21 | DEVIL_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 2 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 22 | ANGELS_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 3 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 23 | DEMONS_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 4 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 24 | SOUL_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 5 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 25 | REALM_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 6 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 26 | HEAVEN_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 7 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 27 | HELL_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 8 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 28 | MIRACLES_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 9 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 29 | PROPHETS_PEER | Supernatural Belief Scale Item 10 peer | -4 "Strongly Disagree" -3 "" -2 "" -1 "" 0 "" 1 "" 2 "" 3 "" 4 "Strongly Agree" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| 30 | RELATION | Relationship self-peer | 1 "Son/Daughter" 2 "Grandson/Granddaughter" 3 "Brother/Sister" 4 "Friend" 5 "Boyfriend/Girlfriend" 6 "Husband/Wife" 7 "Other" | -99 "Fehlender Wert" |
| Utilized Test Methods |
|---|
| Jong, J., Bluemke, M., & Halberstadt, J. (2013). Fear of death and supernatural beliefs: Developing a new Supernatural Belief Scale to test the relationship. European Journal of Personality, 27, 495-506. doi: 10.1002/per.1898 PSYNDEX |