Rodney L. Bassett

Measuring Christian Maturity: A Comparison of Several Scales

One way to explore the meaning of Christian maturity is to try to measure Christian maturity. Catholic and Protestant students responded to several instruments purporting to measure Christian maturity and one instrument measuring intrinsic faith. The correlations between the instruments were all positive and typically high. Several of the instruments were collapsed together and a principle components factor analysis revealed four basic factors undergirding the instruments. Using a varimax rotation, the four factors seemed to reflect: (a) personal commitment as manifested in living, (b) personal commitment as manifested in belief, (c) relationships with others, and (d) perceptions of God as protector and sustainer. In summary, this article takes an empirical look at what it means to be a mature Christian.

Being a Good Neighbor: Can Students Come to Value Homosexual Persons?

Attitudes toward gay/lesbian persons and behavior were initially assessed among Christian college students. Students with either uniformly positive or negative attitudes toward homosexual persons and behavior were then exposed to psychological and spiritual interventions designed to help them see more clearly the value of homosexual persons. Attitudes toward homosexual persons and behavior were then reassessed immediately after the intervention and one month later. Generally, the intervention improved attitudes toward homosexual persons. The picture for attitudes toward homosexual behavior was more complicated. With students who were uniformly rejecting, the intervention made their attitudes toward homosexual behavior less rejecting. However, with students who were uniformly accepting, the intervention diminished their acceptance of gay/lesbian behavior.

Reconsidering Intrinsic Religion as a Source of Universal Compassion

Several studies have considered the ability of devout Christians to accept homosexual persons while rejecting homosexual behavior. Batson, Floyd, Meyer, and Winner (1999) found that intrinsic Christians were not able to make that distinction. Bassett et al. (2000) found that intrinsic Christians were able to distinguish between the value of homosexual persons and behavior. Both studies used financial help as the measure of acceptance. This study replicated the Batson et al. methodology with some modifications. The basic methodology involves students working at a time-limited task, which might financially benefit another “student.” What is varied in the procedure is the description of the other “student” (regarding sexual orientation and what the person intends to do with the money). Results from the study suggested that intrinsic Christians were able to “love the sinner but hate the sin.”

Seeking Forgiveness: Considering the Role of Moral Emotions

Sandage, Worthington, Jr., Hight, and Berry (2000) pointed out that most of the research on forgiveness has focused on the process of granting forgiveness rather than seeking forgiveness. Therefore, in this project, college students were asked to recall a recent event from their past where they harmed someone with whom they had a relationship. They were then asked to rate their feelings following the transgression such that it was possible to determine the extent to which they experienced sorrow or guilt (Narramore, 1984). Participants also indicated how they responded to the situation. In addition, a few weeks later, these same students were invited to respond to a dispositional measure designed to tap their general tendencies toward experiencing sorrow or guilt. One of the particularly interesting findings from this study was that the efforts to measure sorrow seemed to split into two factors. One of these sorrow factors seemed to predict healthy patterns of seeking forgiveness while the other factor did not.

Perceptions of God among Persons with Mental Retardation: A Research Note

Perceptions of God were measured among persons with mental retardation. The levels of retardation of these individuals ranged from mild to profound. Measurement of God concept involved asking participants to select pictures that reminded them of God. The pictures had been pretested with Catholic and Protestant individuals who ranged in cognitive development from preoperational to formal operational thinking. Analyses suggested that moderately retarded persons selected more pictures than mildly or severely/profoundly retarded persons. Also, as the level of retardation went from mild to profound, the discrepancy in popularity between preoperational and formal operational pictures increased. The implications of these and other findings are discussed.

Comparing psychological guilt and Godly sorrow: Do Christians recognize the difference?

Two studies primarily involving college students were conducted to determine whether or not Christians were able to differentiate Narramores (1984) distinctions between guilt and Godly sorrow. The first study found that Christians could identify the difference as a function of resulting changes, the person and attitude/action in primary focus, and attitude toward God, three important distinctions in Narramores model. Another important distinction suggested by Narra more, attitude toward self, was not a discriminating factor. The second study replicated the first and further suggested that mature Christians, as expected, are better at distinguishing between guilt and Godly sorrow than less mature Christians. Though not a direct test of Narramores model, the results nevertheless provide reasonable support for the distinction between guilt and Godly sorrow.

The Ace Model of Emotion: Living Jesus Christ While Experiencing Emotions

This article presents a model that integrates Christian and psychological perspectives on emotion: the ACE model of emotion. This model proposes that all emotions are morally ambidextrous. Any emotion, from anger to love, has the capacity to be experienced in a manner that is pleasing or displeasing to God. The ACE model further assumes that emotions contain three elements: (a) A = arousal or physiological activity, (b) C = cognition, and (c) E = expression. In addition, the model can be considered along two dimensions that determine if an emotion is righteous, sinful, natural, or distorted. The model looks at the emotional “big picture” and may well subsume several previous attempts to integrate psychology and Christianity in terms of specific emotions.

A Comparison of Psychology Faculty Teaching at Christian Colleges and Universities during 1972 and 1984

Psychology faculty at Christian colleges and universities responded to a survey assessing their professional backgrounds and current activities and interests. The results of this survey were then compared with a study reported by Ellison in 1973. This comparison looks at how faculty teaching in psychology departments at Christian institutions has changed over the last few years.

Please Care about Me! or "I Am Pleased to Care about You!" Considering Adaptive and Maladaptive Versions of Unmitigated Communion

Unmitigated communion (UC) refers to the tendency to sacrificially care for others while failing to protect ones own needs within intimate relationships. Two studies were conducted to develop a new measure of UC that differentiated between UC that is self-oriented (motivated by a desire to feel affirmed or valued by others) and other-oriented (motivated by care and concern for the well-being of others). In study one, participants were given a draft of this new measure of UC, an established measure of UC and C, a measure of self-esteem, and a measure of depressive symptoms. Study two further refined the measure and considered possible connections between self- and other-oriented UC and dispositional tendencies toward shame, controlling and critical images of God, and attachment styles. Together, these studies contribute to the literature by demonstrating the importance of considering not only frequency of UC behaviors but also the motivations underlying these behaviors.

Preliminary Analyses of Three Measures of Grace: Can They Be Unified?

Grace is an interesting and potentially significant domain within positive psychology, but remains largely neglected. The present study examined the relationships among three known grace scales to evaluate the potential for creating a stronger single measure. It also explored their relationships to several other religious/spiritual measures to examine whether the three scales are measuring the same construct, to explore the implications for our understanding of grace, and to provide insights for further study. The three measures had moderately strong correlations with each other (r = .55 to .66), had similar relationships to other measures of religion/spirituality, and had distinct relationships to measures of psychological health and distress. This suggested that the three scales measure somewhat different constructs. Two grace scales showed significant negative skew, indicating ceiling problems. Differences in the underlying grace constructs, contamination by other concepts, or an underlying multidimensional structure for grace could account for these differences. Further study should better articulate the constructs underlying grace measures, address problems related to negative skew in responses, and clarify whether grace is multidimensional.