Patricia A. Schoenrade

Measuring Religion as Quest: 1) Validity Concerns

In this paper, concerns are addressed regarding the validity of the Quest scale introduced by Batson (1976) and Batson and Ventis (1982). Some have wondered whether this scale might be more a measure of agnosticism, of anti-orthodoxy, of sophomoric religious doubt, or of religious conflict, if indeed, it is a measure of anything religious at all. We have reviewed the available evidence regarding validity, much of which has appeared in unpublished research reports, theses, dissertations, or convention papers, and thus has not been widely available. Based on the evidence, we have concluded that the Quest scale does indeed measure a dimension of personal religion very much like the one it was designed to measure: an open-ended, active approach to existential questions that resists clearcut, pat answers. Concerns regarding the reliability of the Quest scale, which have proved more persistent, are addressed in a companion paper.

Measuring Religion as Quest: 2) Reliability Concerns

In this paper, concerns are addressed regarding the reliability of the Quest scale introduced by Batson (1976) and Batson and Ventis (1982). After briefly reviewing the evidence, we have concluded that, although the Batson and Ventis (1982) six-item Quest scale seems to have acceptable test-retest reliability, it has poor internal consistency. To remedy this problem, a new 12-item version of the Quest scale is herein proposed. This 12-item version has satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbachs alphas in the .75 to .82 range) and, equally important, is highly correlated with the original six-item Quest scale (correlations in the .85 to .90 range). We recommend that both the new 12-item scale and the six-item version be used in future substantive research that seeks to assess the way in which a quest dimension of religion facilitates or inhibits personal adjustment and positive social behavior.

When I Die... Belief in Afterlife as a Response to Mortality

Religion and, more specifically, belief in afterlife have often been proposed as means of dealing with individual mortality. Somewhat surprisingly, research to date has not clearly identified a relationship between death concern and either religion or belief in afterlife; however, evidence has suggested that belief does play an active role when an individual confronts death. The present study sought to test the proposition that belief in afterlife would function to enhance positive perspective on death for individuals who (a) were initially strong in belief in afterlife and (b) were confronted with the prospect of their own death. Belief in afterlife was indeed associated with increased positive death perspective under these conditions, but, unexpectedly, was also associated with increased negative death perspective. It is proposed that belief in afterlife permits an individual to reconcile the positive and negative aspects of death. While enhancing positive death perspective, such belief also allows the individual to accept the negative aspects of death.

Critical self-reflection and self-perceived altruism: when self-reward fails.

Social learning theory has produced a three-step model of prosocial development: In the young child, prosocial behavior is elicited by material rewards; in the older child, it is elicited also by social rewards; and in the morally mature adult, it is elicited by self-rewards based on an internalized perception of oneself as a kind, caring, altruistic individual. Self-perception theory has complicated this social learning model by demonstrating that once the third step is reached, the continued presence of material and social rewards may undermine intrinsic prosocial motivation based on self-rewards, producing moral regression. We propose a further complication. Critical self-reflection--the desire to know thyself, warts and all--may introduce a self-deprecating attributional bias that can undermine self-perceived altruism, even following helping for which one receives only intrinsic self-rewards. Two experiments are reported in which we manipulated critical self-reflection on ones reasons for helping. Results indicated that self-reflection undermined self-perceived altruism, especially when the salience of the self-rewards for helping was high. Experiment 2 also provided evidence that, as predicted, this self-reflection effect was most apparent for individuals who valued self-knowledge more highly than concern for others. Moral consequences of critical self-reflection are discussed.