Page 34 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Empirical steps toward a Christian Psychology

te point of transformation, then the Christian scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
predictors for life satisfaction should have been (strongly agree), with higher scores indicating
significant for both conditions. higher levels of each self-construal.
The Relationship with God Scale is a 7-item sca-
Participants le that measures a general sense of one’s satisfac-
In the present study we collected data from 155 tion with his or her relationship with God. Two
participants, 91 females and 64 males, at a pre- of the scale items are a modification of the scale
dominantly Christian university. Participants items from Hendrick’s Relationship Assessment
ranged in age from 18 to 59, 90% between 18 Scale (RAS, 1988). For example, the item “how
and 29, with an average age of 23.4 (SD=8.2). well does your partner meet your needs?” be-
Participants were largely single, never married comes “how well does God meet your needs?”
(86%) although included in the sample were The other items are used as created on the RAS,
married (13%) and divorced (2%) participants. the difference being in the Relationship with
The ethnicity of the participants was primarily God Scale instructions participants are told to
Caucasian (89%) and included Hispanic (7%) rate their relationship with God according to
and African American (4%) participants. the following items. The original RAS has been
shown to correlate with measures of love, self-
Measures disclosure, commitment, and investment in
Life satisfaction is be defined as a global judg- a relationship. Additionally, the RAS exhibits
ment of one’s life. The Satisfaction with Life good internal reliability (α=.86).
Scale is an assessment based upon a compari-
son of one’s life circumstances to one’s own in- Procedure
ternal criteria (Diener, Emmons, Larson, Grif- After reading and completing a consent form
fin, 1985). Respondents were instructed to rate participants completed a questionnaire packet
each item using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 consisting of a Relationship with God Scale (re-
(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Item presenting a Christian worldview), an Indepen-
ratings are summed to provide a total score dence Scale (representing cultural individua-
ranging from 5 – 35 where higher scores were lism), and an Interdependence Scale (represen-
indicative of greater life satisfaction. Test-retest ting cultural collectivism). At this point in the
reliability for the scale has been reported at 0.82 questionnaire packets each included either a
for a 2-month interval. Internal consistency mortality salience manipulation (experimental
from several samples has been reported bet- condition) or questions about the last two tele-
ween α=.82 and α=.92. vision shows they watched (control condition).
The Independent and Interdependent Self- After either the manipulation or control, each
Construal Scales (Gudykunst, Matsumoto, participant completed the Satisfaction with Life
Ting-Toomey, Nishida, Kim, Heyman, 1994) Scale, received a debriefing about the study and
measure the extent to which individuals see was released.
themselves as independent and unique (in-
dependent) and the extent to which they see Mortality Salience Manipulation
themselves as interdependent and connected Terror Management Theory (TMT) is based on
to others (interdependent). Hackman, Johnson, the idea that humans’ higher order intellectual
Ellis and Staley (1999) have shown that inde- abilities lead to an awareness of human vulne-
pendent and interdependent self-construal are rability and mortality, and that this awareness
two separate factors, not two different dimen- creates the potential for overwhelming terror
sions of the same factor. Both the Independent (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczyn-
(α=.78-.86) and Interdependent (α=.79-.89) ski, & Lyon, 1989). Terror Management Theory
scales show good levels of internal consistency. “posits that cultural conceptions of reality serve
The Independent scale consists of 14 items and the vital function of buffering the anxiety which
the Interdependent scale consists of 15 items. results from awareness of human vulnerability
All items are answered using a 7-point Likert and mortality”, (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, So-

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