SACRED EMOTIONS SCALE

Donna Christine Burdzy

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green

State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

May 2014

Committee:

Kenneth I. Pargament, Advisor

Howard Casey Cromwell

Harold Rosenberg
 © 2014

Donna Burdzy

All Rights Reserved

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ABSTRACT

Kenneth I. Pargament, Advisor

The content of holy texts, the writings of religious figures, and documented

accounts of ordinary people’s varied experiences suggest that encounters with the sacred

are characterized by distinctive emotional responses. Research on the internal aspects of

religion and spirituality is limited in part by the difficulty in defining, measuring and

validating constructs that represent such a highly subjective and individualized

experience. There exists, accordingly, little empirically derived evidence that might

contribute to an understanding of the nature of emotional responses to sacred moments.

The need for greater attention regarding the nature of people’s psychological experience

associated with sacred moments becomes particularly apparent when we consider that

many individuals believe their inner relationship with the sacred lies at the heart of their

spiritual and religious lives. This study describes the development and the initial testing

of a sacred emotions scale (SES) which is intended to measure the emotional impact of an

individual’s experience of the sacred. The study’s findings provide encouraging evidence

for the use of the SES along with its two sub-scales as a measure of the emotions

associated with religious and spiritual experiences. The preliminary evidence suggests the

presence of a common set of emotional responses to the experience of the sacred separate

and distinct from people’s cognitive understanding of their religious beliefs. These results

provide support for a more phenomenological definition of people's religious and spiritual

lives which deemphasizes distinctions due to religious beliefs and affiliations.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1

The Sacred ............................................................................................................ 1

Emotional Responses ................................................................................................ 3

Present Study ............................................................................................................ 5

Rudolf Otto ............................................................................................................ 6

Research on Religion and Emotion............................................................................ 11

Sacred Emotions Scale (SES) ................................................................................... 15

Content and Structure of SES ........................................................................ 15

Correlating Factors......................................................................................... 17

Rational and Non-Rational Thinking ............................................................ 18

Religious Orientation .................................................................................... 19

Personality Factors ........................................................................................ 20

Religious Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction ................................................. 21

METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 23

Participants ............................................................................................................ 23

Method ............................................................................................................ 24

Sample Characteristics............................................................................................... 25

Measures ............................................................................................................ 26

Sacred Emotions Scale................................................................................... 26

Rational-Experiential Inventory – 40............................................................. 27

Measure of Personality .................................................................................. 28

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Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)................................................................ 29

The Spiritual Well-Being Scale .................................................................... 29

The Satisfaction with Life Scale .................................................................... 30

Statistical Analyses ................................................................................................... 30

Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 30

Factor Analysis ............................................................................................. 30

Regression Analysis....................................................................................... 31

RESULTS ...... ....................................................................................................................... 32

Data Review ............................................................................................................ 32

Exploratory Factor Analysis ..................................................................................... 33

Internal Consistency and Descriptive Statistics......................................................... 36

T-TESTs and ANOVAs............................................................................................. 38

Correlational and Regression Analyses ..................................................................... 39

Responses to Open-Ended Questions about the Sacred Experience.......................... 43

Sacred encounters involving a deity .............................................................. 44

Sacred encounters not involving a deity. ....................................................... 44

Sacred encounters that occurred during religious practices........................... 44

Sacred encounters that did not occur during religious practices.................... 44

DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................................... 46

Limitations and Future Directions ............................................................................. 56

Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 58

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................................. 60

APPENDIX A. MECHANICAL TURK SCREENING PAGE ........................................... 84

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APPENDIX B. SACRED EMOTIONS SCALE .................................................................. 85

APPENDIX C. INSTRUCTRIONS FOR RECALLING A SACRED ENCOUNTER. ...... 87

APPENDIX D. ENCOUNTER DETAIL QUESTIONS, AFTER

LEVINE ET AL. (2009) ............................................................................. 88

APPENDIX E. RATIONAL-EXPERIENTIAL INVENTORY........................................... 90

APPENDIX F. BIG FIVE INVENTORY (JOHN ET AL., 1991) ....................................... 92

APPENDIX G. THE SATISFACTION WITH LIFE SCALE

(SWLS; DIENER ET AL., 1985) ............................................................... 93

APPENDIX H. EXTRINSIC/INTRINSIC RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION SCALE

(GORSUCH & MCPHERSON, 1989) ....................................................... 94

APPENDIX I. QUEST ORIENTATION SCALE (BATSON & SCHOENRADE, 1991) .. 95

APPENDIX J. HSRB APPROVAL LETTER...................................................................... 96

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1 Summary of sample characteristics....................................................................... 72

2 Summary of religious characteristics of sample. ....................................................... 73

3 Factor loadings and communalities ........................................................................... 74

4 Final factor items ....................................................................................................... 76

5 Descriptive statistics .................................................................................................. 78

6 Scale correlations ....................................................................................................... 80

7 Regression analyses ................................................................................................... 81

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INTRODUCTION

The Sacred

The concept of the sacred lies at the heart of the human experience of the divine. People

often view their inner relationship with what they perceive as sacred as the essence of their

spiritual and religious lives. This thesis will examine whether there are specific emotions that

typify the affective component of individuals’ psychological experience of the sacred. This

attempt to understand the nature of people’s affective experiences of the sacred will focus on

people’s perception of the sacred. It is in no way an effort to determine the nature of the divine

and makes no ontological assumptions about the sacred. This thesis will propose and test an

empirically derived construct and self-report measure representing a specific combination of

emotions that arise from individuals’ encounters with the sacred.

Scholars and researchers have often become mired in debates over a definition of the

sacred that could satisfy the multiple and diverse theoretical and theological perspectives

regarding the nature of the divine and people’s spiritual lives. Many individuals view the sacred

as one and the same as the divine, while other individuals may think of the sacred in a broader

way that includes special objects, places and actions which are imbued with the quality of the

divine. Both concepts of the sacred are valid since they each characterize a special understanding

and relationship between an individual and the divine.

Considerable attention has been devoted to the role of the sacred in people’s lives.

Psychological research has made significant inroads toward understanding how people use
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religion and spirituality to establish goals and find meaning in their lives (Emmons, 2005). For

example, the meaning people find through their familial relationships may be tied to their

experience of the sacred (DeMaris, Mahoney, & Pargament, 2010; Pargament, & Mahoney,

2005; Mahoney, Pargament, Murray-Swank, Murray-Swank, 2003). Since some individuals

view marriage as a relationship imbued with a sacred element, the impact of divorce may involve

not only a loss of human love, it may also represent a spiritual loss for them (Krumei, Mahoney,

& Pargament, 2009). The role of the sacred in an individual’s life can also influence his or her

mental and physical health. For example, individuals who cultivate and reflect on sacred

moments are better able to manage the effects of stress (Goldstein, 2007) and, conversely,

desecration of the sacred in a person’s life has been associated with poorer health outcomes

(Pargament, Magyar, Benore, & Mahoney, 2005). The influence of the sacred also extends

beyond the individual by representing a defining aspect of a community (Pargament, 2008).

Very few studies, however, have examined people’s psychological or inward experience

of the sacred. Such experiences of the sacred, while they may occur in the presence of external

or observable sacred or non-sacred stimuli, are an inherently internal phenomenon. They

represent the emotions, perceptions, and cognitions that make up people’s inner, psychological

experience of spirituality and religion. The need for greater attention regarding the nature of

people’s inner encounters with the sacred becomes particularly apparent when we consider that

many individuals believe their inner relationship with the sacred lies at the heart of their spiritual

and religious lives.

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Many individuals at some point in their life have experienced an intense encounter with

the sacred. Numerous accounts of individuals’ sacred experiences have been documented. The

Religious Experience Research Centre, founded in 1969 by marine biologist Alister Hardy, alone

has amassed an archive of over 6,000 personal descriptions of spiritual encounters (Rankin,

2008). Anecdotal accounts of sacred experiences abound in sacred texts as well as in

biographical and hagiographical treatments of the lives of holy men and women.

The scientific study of the nature of people’s relationship with the sacred is challenging.

Research on the internal aspects of religion and spirituality is limited in part by the difficulty in

defining, measuring and validating constructs that represent such a highly subjective and

individualized experience. Part of this challenge may stem from the fact that the meaning of “the

sacred” can vary dramatically between people. If researchers were to ask people to define their

relationship with the sacred, they may very well receive as many diverging descriptions as there

are individuals. Differences in ideologies, practices, and social and cultural values complicate the

task of defining the common elements of the internal experience of the sacred. Psychological

research, however, has demonstrated that it is not necessary to fully understand the object of a

person’s attention to assess how that person is affected by it emotionally, cognitively, or

physically.

Emotional Responses

The goal of this research is to develop a measure that assesses individuals’ emotional

experience of the sacred. Psychological research has shown that many emotions are experienced

similarly by people from around the world (Ekman, 1993; Elfenbein, & Ambady, 2002).
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Research in the psychology of religion has shown that individuals’ encounters with the sacred

are often characterized by a strong emotional response. A psychological measure that captures a

distinctive human response to encounters with the sacred, defined in emotional terms, would

facilitate empirical research of these experiences.

What emotions then are central to a person’s experience of the sacred? Pargament’s

(2007) three core sacred qualities consisting of transcendence, boundlessness, and ultimacy

encapsulate many of the main cognitive and perceptual appraisals people associate with their

experience of the divine. Pargament goes on to describe how the experience of the sacred is also

associated with distinctive emotions. He notes that, if we were to stand at the edge of a cliff and

behold the sight of the Grand Canyon, it would not be hard to imagine experiencing feelings of

awe, wonder, and amazement, or perhaps be filled with emotions of joy and gratitude. The fact

that people associate these types of positive feelings with their encounters of the sacred is well

documented in the literature. What has received less attention in research is how the same sacred

experience can also be characterized by negative emotions. It is often difficult for people to

identify or understand situations that are characterized by conflicting emotions. However, if we

again picture ourselves standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a spectacular canyon it is not

hard to imagine that along with awe and wonder there might also be fears of falling, an

overwhelming sense of powerlessness or a feeling of angst as we realize our physical smallness.

The emotional incongruity that characterizes people’s experiences of the sacred has been

observed by Cohen, Gruber, and Keltner (2010). They conducted a study where they compared

the emotional ratings of individuals who had experienced profound beauty to those of individuals
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who had experienced a transformative spiritual experience. The two experiences were similarly

rated in terms of positive emotions (e.g. happiness, gratitude, calm) and cognitive appraisals

(connection to others, understanding). However, transformative spiritual experiences were

differentiated by higher ratings of more negative feelings such as sadness, confusion, and relief.

Cohen et al.’s findings support the view that spiritual and religious experiences may often be

associated with difficult emotions and negative life experiences (Pargament, 2007).

Defining encounters with the sacred as a unique psychological experience should not be

confused as an attempt to reduce all of religion and spirituality to a handful of psychological

variables. To do so would amount to losing sight of the forest for the trees. In addition to being

infinite, boundless, and transcendent, religious experiences are quite specific to the individual.

Nevertheless, there are psychological factors that may distinguish religious experiences from

other human experiences.

Present Study

In the present study, I developed a scale that is intended to measure the emotional

experience of the sacred building upon the work of Rudolf Otto. Otto’s seminal work Das

Heilige (The Nature of the Holy, 2003) has particularly influenced the study of the psychology of

religion. He was the first scholar to present a theoretical framework for the affective experience

that characterizes individuals’ encounters with the sacred.

The following introduction will (1) summarize Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous;

(2) review other significant works on religion and emotions; (3) present an overview of a
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proposed scale measuring people’s affective experience of the sacred; and (4) present hypotheses

on the correlates of the scale and its sub-factors.

Rudolf Otto

The sacred emotions scale that was developed in this study builds on the work of the

early 20th century philosopher and Lutheran theologian Rudolf Otto. Otto presented his theory of

religion in an influential book entitled Das Heilige (1917) which was translated into English as

The Idea of the Holy (1923). His seminal work introduced a novel and original perspective on the

study of religion and spirituality. Otto sought to break with the tradition of scholarly work on the

nature of the sacred that examined how people related externally to God and to religion. He

focused instead on understanding the ways in which people experienced the sacred

psychologically since he conceptualized religion as an autonomous human activity that exists in

response to a transcendental power.

Prior to Otto’s work, the holy had traditionally been viewed as denoting something

“completely good” or something representing an ideal moral goodness. Otto used the term

“numinous” (from numen, the Latin word for god) to redefine the concept of the holy as a

representation of the divine and incomprehensible power that lies at the core of the sacred. He

characterized the essence of the religious experience as the emotions evoked by the presence of

the sacred. Otto believed that the numinous was primarily experienced by people not as a

philosophical abstraction, but as something real and objective.

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Otto characterized an encounter with the sacred as first and foremost an emotional state

with a distinctively unique and specific nature. Quoting William James who described this

feeling as a “sense of reality, a feeling of objective presence, a perception of what we may call

‘something there’” (cited in Otto, 1923, p.11), Otto made the observation that people

experienced the numinous as simultaneously real and yet ineffable. Otto also recognized that the

numinous essentially defied rational thought. Since an encounter with the sacred or the numinous

transcends the reality of human experience, its nature “can only be suggested by means of the

special way in which it is reflected in the mind in terms of feeling” (Otto, p.12). Otto described

the aspect of the sacred that lies beyond human understanding as the mysterium. He explained

the human response to the sacred as a two-factor schema comprised of aspects of the mysterium.

The mysterium evokes the human awareness that the divine is something radically

different and wholly other (ganz andere) than ourselves. The mysterium is “that which is hidden

and esoteric, that which is beyond conception or understanding, extraordinary and unfamiliar”

(Otto, p.13). The element of the sacred “which is beyond conception” presents a considerable

challenge for researchers attempting to operationalize it as a psychological construct. Comparing

aspects of the sacred with the profane becomes difficult since the emotions evoked by encounters

with the sacred cannot be readily compared with the emotions that people experience in everyday

life. The love a person feels for another person is different from the love that arises from an

experience of the sacred. The qualities of boundlessness, timelessness and transcendence

associated with the sacred transform feelings of love into something else. As Otto noted, “mere

love, mere trust, for all the glory and happiness they bring, do not explain to us that moment of
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rapture that breathes in our tenderest and most heart-felt hymns of salvation” (Otto, 1923, p.34).

The inherently ineffable nature of the sacred so completely exposes the limitations of mundane

human language and thoughts that people tend to use analogies and images to evoke their

emotional experience of the sacred. Allegory and imagery that convey the complex emotional

experience of the sacred abound in religious texts. Since the nature of the sacred is inherently

ineffable, Otto chose to describe people’s encounters with the sacred in terms of human

emotions.

Otto theorized that encounters with the sacred evoke a deeply ambivalent emotional

experience. He believed that this experience consisted of a mixture of strongly positive and

negative perceptions. Otto defined this dialectical nature of the human response to the sacred as

the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinums. The mysterium tremendum emphasizes

the awe-inspiring and overwhelming presence of a divine power. The feeling of awe that

characterizes Otto’s concept of the tremendum is more emotionally complex than the intense

feeling of wonder that arises from a spectacular display of nature’s beauty and power or from a

singular human achievement. The feeling of profound awe associated with the experience of the

sacred is intertwined with a uniquely religious sense of dread. This feeling of religious dread not

only reflects the terror of the unknown but also the horror of facing something that defies our

understanding of reality.

The truly ‘mysterious’ object is beyond our apprehension and

comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain

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irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon something

inherently ‘wholly other’, whose kind and character are

incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore

recoil in a wonder that strikes us chill and numb. (Otto, 1923, p.28)

Otto’s religious dread also includes human existential fear. Awareness of the absolute

overpowering nature of the numinous inspires a realization of one’s relative powerlessness. Otto

believed that the cognitive self-abasement which accompanied this sensation evoked both

feelings of religious humility and fears of annihilation of the self. The mysterium fascinans, the

compelling attraction to a spiritual power that underlies humanity’s enduring fascination with the

divine, comprises the counterpart to the mysterium tremendum. People may be drawn toward

wondrous phenomena of the mundane world that they find attractive and appealing. The potent

allure of the sacred is more complex since it encompasses both a compelling desire to move

closer toward the divine despite the overwhelming feelings of fear and dread that inspire the urge

to run away. Otto ascribes the divine’s magnetic power of attraction for a person to the fact that:

The ‘mystery’ is for him not merely something to be wondered at

but something that entrances him; and beside that in it which

bewilders and confounds, he feels a something that captivates and

transports him with a strange ravishment, rising often enough to

the pitch of dizzy intoxication; it is the Dionysiac element in the

numen. (Otto, 1923, p.30).

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This “Dionysiac element” represents the intensely positive emotions that characterize religious

joy and rapture, the feelings of divine love, and the transcendent feelings of spiritual

enlightenment, salvation, and revelation.

Otto’s conceptualization of the holy (which in German holds the dual meaning of the

“sacred”) attempted to encompass a universal perspective of spirituality. Using the holy as an

inclusive noun referring to the object of human religiosity enabled him to encompass all religious

communities and traditions. Otto’s work created a foundation for a psychological interpretation

of the emotional factors that underlie the experience of the sacred. His dialectical

conceptualization of the religious encounter in terms of the mysterium tremendum and mysterium

fascinums effectively characterizes it as a unique and distinctive psychological experience. “One

does not kneel before a cyclone or the blind forces of nature, nor even before Omnipotence

merely as such. But one does kneel before the wholly uncomprehended Mystery, revealed yet

unrevealed, and one’s soul is stilled by feeling the way of its working, and therein its

justification” (Otto, 1923, p.84). Identifying patterns of feelings that correspond to the distinct

emotional responses evoked by the mysterium aspect of the divine may help researchers to

distinguish sacred encounters from other types of psychological experiences.

Religion has always been associated with profound and intense emotions. Theologians

such as Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) believed that

emotion constituted the foundation of religious experience. William James, who placed emotion

at the center of his conceptualization of religion, insisted “on rehabilitating the element of feeling
 11
in religion” (James, 1902). The academic discipline of psychology of religion, however, has

produced strikingly little research on the emotional dimension of religion (Emmons, 2005).

Research on Religion and Emotion

Scholars have advocated two primary methods for studying the relationship between

religion and emotion. Some have favored a more phenomenological approach to analyzing the

influence of religious experiences on emotions (Arnold, 1960; Hood, 1995;Watts 1996). Hill and

Hood (1999) postulated that the experience of the sacred is “largely affective”. Other scholars

emphasized examining the ways in which emotions and cognitions interact to form the basis for

the religious experience (O’Connor, 1996; Pyysiainen, 2001; Azari & Birnbacher, 2004). Very

few scholars, however, have actually put their theoretical prescriptions into practice (Emmons,

2005A).

Researchers have investigated specific aspects of the relationship between emotion and

religion. Anxious attachment to God has been found to predict negative affect and to inversely

predict positive affect (Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002). Religious behaviors appear to moderate the

ability to self-regulate moods and emotions (Thayer et al., 1994, McCullough & Willoughby,

2009). Adopting spiritual strivings – goals that are oriented toward a pursuit of the sacred –

appear to be associated with higher positive affect than other types of life goals (Emmons

2005B). Religiosity also moderates the relationship between positive affect and meaning in life

(Hicks & King, 2008). Saroglou et al. (2008) found that positive emotions can lead to an increase

in religiousness and spirituality.

Hood et al. (2009) pointedly noted that much of the research investigating the

relationship between religious or spiritual experiences and emotion has focused on positive
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emotions. They ascribed this phenomenon primarily to the use of biased methodologies adopted

by “persons committed to a positive assessment of religious and spiritual experience” (Hood et

al., 2009). Spilka and McIntosh (1995) suggested that religious believers generally attribute to

the divine only experiences that produce positive outcomes. The existence of an extensive

literature investigating the relationship between religion and health and well-being may also

partially account for this phenomenon. Fredrickson (2002) indicated that positive emotions may

constitute one of the “active ingredients” that account for the benefits that religious practices

confer on mental and physical health. Exline (2002) provided an important counterargument by

suggesting that the scientific study of religion devote greater attention to negative emotions.

A small number of studies have examined how religion is associated with specific

emotions. McCullough et al. (2002) found that measures of gratitude as a disposition correlated

positively with measures of religiousness and spirituality. Watkins et al. (2003) reported that

feelings of gratitude correlated positively with intrinsic religiousness and negatively with

extrinsic religiousness. Snyder at al. (2002) suggested that the emotion of hope, as it arises from

an involvement with religion, helps explain the link between religion and health.

Psychologists have paid very little attention to understanding why certain religious

experiences “are intensely affectual” (Hill, 1999). Despite the extensive theological and

philosophical writings on this topic, little research has examined how religious experiences – in

particular sacred experiences – give rise to specific emotions such as awe and fascination.

Wettstein (1997) explored the idea that awe lies at the core of the Judaic religious life by

reviewing religious texts and practices. Keltner and Haidt (2003) developed a novel conceptual

approach to awe – a construct that had been essentially ignored in the field of emotion research -

in part because “awe is central to the experience of religion”. Sundurarajan (2003) concluded her
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critical review of Keltner and Haidt’s conceptual approach by suggesting that their model’s

overly secular character rendered it inapplicable to conducting empirical research on religious

awe. Keltner and Haidt’s model of awe has, to-date, only been applied in a study examining the

influence of the emotion of awe on cognitions (Shiota et al., 2007).

Three studies have provided limited insights into the relationship between religious

experiences and prototypical religious emotions, such as awe. Van Cappelen and Saroglou

(2012) in a study of 133 Belgian college students of Christian faith found that the emotion of

awe activated feelings that depend on the specific dimension of faith and spirituality. The

induction of awe activated feelings of oneness with friends for participants who scored high on

connectedness while individuals who scored high on universality experienced increased feelings

of oneness with people in general. Cohen et al. (2010) conducted a study comparing the

emotions expressed in narratives about spiritual transformation with those found in narratives

about experiences of great beauty supplied by 147 American college students. Their findings,

suggested that negatively valenced emotions such as anxiety, sadness, pain, and awe “are central

to religious and spiritual experiences.” In particular, they noted that their participants commonly

mentioned awe. Kohls et al. (2008) tested whether an “Exceptional Experiences Questionnaire”

could reliably distinguish between spiritual and psychopathological experiences. Their study,

which was based on data collected from 711 German and Swiss participants recruited from

various spiritual and religious groups, was primarily concerned with designing research tools for

investigating exceptional experiences. While documenting their conclusion that their instrument

could successfully separate spiritual from psychopathological experiences, Kohls et al.

mentioned that its psychometric properties indicated spiritual experiences are generally
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characterized by a mixture of positive spiritual experiences and negative emotions connected

with ego loss.

Kohls et al.’s (2008) reported pattern of positive spiritual experiences and ego loss

accorded with the findings reported by Hood (1975) in his seminal work on mysticism. Hood

developed an innovative measurement tool to discern the extent to which an individual’s

experience may be considered to be “mystical”. His 32 item scale consisted of two major factors:

a “general mysticism” factor; and a “religious quality” factor. Hood suggested that the general

mysticism factor may be best conceptualized as a measure of an individual’s capacity for

“intense experiences”. Since Hood believed that mysticism constituted only one type of intense

experience, his religious quality factor referred to the “sacredness” of the individual’s intense

experience.

Scholars have traditionally closely associated mysticism with religion. Some theorists

have argued that mysticism merely constitutes one of several types of religious experiences

(Yandell 1993, 2010), while others have characterized mystical experiences as a perception of

the divine or communion with the sacred (Wainwright, 1981; Alston, 1992; Kripal, 2006). Hood

(2001) defined mysticism as a psychological state resulting from an individual’s union with a

transcendental force. He suggested that this transformative experience was characterized by a

feeling of “ego loss” and could occur due to a union with God as well as with non-theistic or

non-religious forces (Hood, 1989).

The Sacred Emotions Scale (SES), that was developed in this study, differs from Hood’s

mysticism scale in several important ways. The mysticism scale was intended to measure the

intense sensations and cognitions that characterize an individual’s experience of altered

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consciousness. The SES is intended to measure the emotional impact of an individual’s

experience of the sacred. Although Hood (2001) acknowledges that mystical experiences may

not necessarily be positive, his scale does not contain any items measuring negative affect.

Moreover, the mysticism scale is primarily composed of cognitive and perceptual items, and

contains a limited number of emotional items. While the SES is by no means meant to be an

exhaustive list of all the emotions a person could experience when encountering the sacred, it

does attempt to measure the emotions theorized to be particularly characteristic of an experience

of the sacred.

The Sacred Emotions Scale (SES)

This proposed study focuses on the emotions associated with sacred encounters. The

content of sacred texts, the writings of religious figures, and documented accounts of ordinary

people’s varied experiences suggest that encounters with the sacred are characterized by

distinctive emotional responses. There exists, however, little empirically derived evidence that

might contribute to an understanding of the nature of this emotional experience. My thesis

proposes that people’s affective experiences of the sacred can be understood using the

dimensions of awe and fascination. More specifically, this study describes the development of a

sacred emotions scale (SES) that draws upon the work of Rudolf Otto and other theorists.

Content and Structure of SES. Rudolf Otto’s conceptualization of the mysterium

tremendum and the mysterium fascinans provides an excellent foundation for investigating the

distinctive mixture of positive and negative emotions that characterizes people’s perceptions of

their sacred experiences. Using this foundation, I have developed a two dimensional self-report

measure of emotions elicited by encounters with the sacred. The Sacred Awe dimension
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represents the feelings of awe, anxiety (dread), humility, unworthiness, reverence, fear of the

unknown, and existential fear associated with encounters with the sacred. The Sacred

Fascination dimension represents intense feelings of fascination, attraction, curiosity, and

intense positive affect (which may be experienced as a profound feeling of love, spiritual bliss or

enthrallment), and awareness. My thesis research will attempt to test the validity of this measure.

People have a basic set of emotions that make up their emotional vocabulary. The SES is

designed to measure the distinctive and complex combination of emotions that characterize

encounters with the sacred. The scale is made up of a combination of items that measure

emotions directly as well as the desire to perform actions that are associated with those emotions.

The scale accordingly includes a number of items that are descriptions of actions that may be

associated with certain religious feelings. For example, the item “I felt I should fall to my knees”

describes a behavior that may reflect the feelings of awe, reverence, inferiority and fear. In the

case of the sacred, actions may very well speak louder than words. Including items in the scale

that measure the desire to perform such behaviors may offer the advantage of representing a

complex mixture of emotions that would be difficult to capture using a traditional inventory of

emotions. Religious texts and rituals as well as accounts of religious experiences provide

evidence that people commonly have a number of specific behavioral reactions when they

encounter the sacred. The work of numerous scholars across various academic disciplines also

supports the existence of a collection of universally performed behavioral responses to the sacred

which has endured the passage of time. Mircea Eliade (1959), in his seminal work “The Sacred

and Profane”, theorized that the development of particular religious behaviors represented

people’s innate awareness that the divine differs fundamentally from the profane nature of

humanity and of the earthly realm. In the Hebrew Bible, for example, Moses removed his shoes
 17
when he saw the burning bush and became aware that he was of standing on holy ground. The

removal of shoes (a profane object), the act of looking away or shielding one’s eyes, the covering

of the body, face, and hair, kneeling and bowing are all actions that may be performed in reaction

to the sacred. These actions appear to be motivated and accompanied by the emotional response

of religious awe. Similarly, “Reaching out with my hands open upwards”, “Looking up at the

sky”, “Giving thanks” or “Singing out loud” are behaviors that may accompany an experience of

spiritual entrancement, joy, happiness, and enlightenment that comprise aspects of the

fascination dimension. These acts of reverence are often reserved for the sacred. Earthly objects,

acts of nature, animals and people are not usually afforded the same type of behavioral or

emotional response unless people happen to regard them as a manifestation of the sacred or as a

conduit for the divine. For instance, the custom of kneeling or prostrating one’s self before a

leader or a monarch stems from the belief that kings and rulers were divinely appointed and/or

were embodiments or instruments of the sacred’s power.

Correlating Factors. Otto, theologian that he was, did not attempt to construct a

psychological explanation regarding whether and how the emotional experience elicited by an

encounter with the numinous might vary between individuals or what such variations might

imply. He did not indicate whether experiences of the sacred were characterized by a particular

mixture, intensity, or duration of fascinans and tremendum emotions, nor did he specify whether

the emotional experience was qualitatively similar for all individuals in all situations. While

Otto speculated in passing that an individual whose affective experience of the sacred consisted

primarily of feelings of awe and dread would have a religious life that was centered around the

“expiation”, “propitiation”, and “appeasement” of a fearsome god, he did not present a theory
 18
regarding how a person’s emotional experience of the numinous might relate to other factors that

characterized their life or personality.

The links between individual differences in peoples’ personalities, thinking styles, their

attitude toward their spiritual lives, and the types of emotional responses elicited by the sacred

have not been investigated. My thesis research will examine whether overall scores on the SES

and its sub-dimensions of awe and fascination that characterize an encounter with the sacred

differ between individuals in a systematic way. Specifically, this study will investigate whether

correlations exist between scores on the SES and individual differences in the need for rational

thinking, religious orientation, personality, as well as general life satisfaction and psychological

well-being.

Rational and Non-Rational Thinking. The design of the sacred emotions scale is

predicated on a number of theoretical assumptions regarding how people perceive the sacred.

The notion that the sacred transcends the limits of human comprehension and is therefore

inherently non-rational constitutes the most important of these assumptions. Otto emphatically

and repeatedly points out throughout Das Heilige that the numinous defies conceptualization and

that people’s reactions to it are not inherently rational. He did not intend, however, to suggest

that the sacred is irrational – something which is foolish and conceptually without merit. Otto

was specifically cautioning that the scientific world’s “bias to rationalization” can lead to a

mindset which fails to grasp the “heart of the religious experience” (Otto, 1923, p.3) because it

over-intellectualizes religion. Otto believed that the ability to accept the existence of the non-

rational is integral to people’s ability to comprehend the nature of the numinous.

 19
An ability to cognitively accept the existence of the non-rational may influence how

people experience the sacred. According to Seymour Epstein’s (1994) cognitive-experiential

self-theory of perception, individuals appear to have two fundamentally different modes of

processing information: an analytical-rational thinking style and an intuitive-experiential

thinking style. Epstein et al. (1996) developed and validated a Rational-Experiential Inventory

(REI) that used a Need for Cognition scale and a Faith in Intuition scale to measure these two

processing modes. Pacini and Epstein (1999) updated the REI in order to more effectively relate

rational and experiential thinking styles to various aspects of an individual’s personality.

Individual differences in cognitive processing styles may shape affective experiences of

the sacred. If the nature of the sacred defies rational comprehension, it is possible that

individuals with a high preference for processing information in a rational way will experience

the sacred differently from individuals who prefer to rely on their intuition and feelings to inform

them about their experiences. Specifically, it is hypothesized that individuals with a highly

rational processing style will score lower on the sacred emotions scale since they may tend to

interpret their experience of the sacred in more factual and rational terms than in terms of their

emotions. People with a more experiential information processing style are expected to have a

higher overall score on the sacred emotions scale since they may tend to understand their

experience of the sacred in terms of their emotions.

Religious Orientation. Religious orientation – the motivating reasons behind people’s

religious behaviors – may also influence how people experience the sacred emotionally.

Allport’s (1950) theory of intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations (which was later

elaborated upon by Allport and Ross (1967), Gorsuch and Venable (1983), and by Gorsuch and

McPherson (1989)) along with Batson and Ventis’ (1982) quest orientation have dominated the
 20
conceptualization of religious motivation in the psychology of religion field. A person with an

extrinsic religious orientation views religious life as a means to achieving goals that are not

related to spiritual fulfillment. People with an extrinsic orientation may, for example, value their

religious and spiritual life as a means of developing friends or enhancing their social status. An

intrinsic religious orientation reflects an integration of an individual’s religious or spiritual

beliefs and values with his or her identity. An individual with an intrinsic orientation will be

motivated to achieve his or her spiritual goals because his or her spiritual life is inherently

rewarding. The quest orientation measures the extent to which a person’s spiritual and religious

goals are tied to a pursuit for answers to existential questions. Batson and Ventis (1982)

identified three aspects of this orientation: 1. A desire and a willingness to address complex

existential questions; 2. Openness to change in one’s life; 3. A belief that religious doubt can be

positive.

The emotional experience of the sacred fundamentally constitutes an intensely internal

experience that takes place within an individual’s inner psychic realm. This suggests that

individuals who score higher on the overall sacred emotions scale are more likely to have a

higher intrinsic orientation and a lower extrinsic orientation. The sacred awe factor contains a

number of items that reflect existential fears and conflict. Since individuals who score higher on

quest orientation are motivated to explore and to answer existential questions, it seems likely that

they will have higher sacred awe scores.

Personality Factors. Personality factors that relate to an individual’s ability to process the

non-rational may correlate with scores on the sacred emotions scale. Since the scale measures

emotional experience, it may also correlate with personality factors that reflect an individual’s

emotional nature. Research in the psychology of religion field has shown little correlation
 21
between the five factor model of personality traits and overall religious orientation (Robbins et

al., 2010). Aspects of the big five personality factors, however, may correspond to the specific

types of emotional reactions people experience in sacred encounters.

Openness to experience represents the extent to which creativity, intellectual curiosity

and a desire to seek out novel experiences constitutes a part of an individual’s personality.

Openness to experience has been found to significantly positively correlate with an intuitive

thinking style (Witteman et al., 2009). Since an individual’s cognitive processing style may

significantly affect his emotional response to sacred encounters, it is expected that individuals

who score high on the SES will also be high on openness to experience. Individuals that score

high on the neuroticism factor are more likely to experience a high degree of emotional lability,

worry, guilt, and anxiety. Insofar as encounters with the sacred are characterized by strong and

often conflicting emotions, individuals who are high on neuroticism may have a higher score on

both the sacred awe and the sacred fascination subscales.

Religious Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction. Studies of individuals from a wide range of

populations have also demonstrated that religious and spiritual satisfaction correlate with life

satisfaction (Ayela, Mulligan, Gheorghiu, & Reyes-Ortiz, 1999; Bienenfeld, Koenig, Larson, &

Sherrill, 1997; Kinney & Coyle, 1992; Levin, Chatters, & Taylor, 1995) and with psychological

well-being (Bosworth, Park, McQuoid, Hays, & Steffens, 2003; Mela, Marcoux, Baetz, Griffin,

Angelski, & Deqiang, 2008). If one of the main ways a person psychologically experiences

religion is through his or her emotions, then it is possible that the intensity and nature of a

person’s emotional experience of the sacred may closely reflect his or her levels of religious or

spiritual satisfaction. Specifically, it is hypothesized that the sacred awe factor will negatively

correlate with religious satisfaction, life satisfaction and measures of psychological adjustment
 22
while the sacred fascination factor will positively correlate with religious satisfaction, life

satisfaction, and measures of psychological adjustment.

 23
METHODOLOGY

Participants

The proposed study recruited 230 adult participants (18 years or older) who identified

themselves as having had a personal encounter with the sacred. Participants were screened to

ensure that they were residents of the United States, indicated that English is their native

language, and chose an encounter with the sacred from among a list of past personal experiences.

Because the SES is faith neutral and makes no assumptions about the nature of the sacred, the

study was open to individuals of all religious and spiritual beliefs as well as cultural

backgrounds. Participants received $0.75 for taking part in the study.

Participants were recruited from Mechanical Turk, an online crowd-sourcing work forum.

Mechanical Turk, which was created by and is managed by Amazon.com, is an internet-based

forum where individuals or companies can post job assignments that can be performed remotely

or online. Job assignments tend to be very short tasks that can be completed within a span of a

few minutes to 24hours. The difficulty of the tasks range from simple categorization tasks that

require no formal education or skills training to more specialized tasks such as writing, editing,

translation work, writing short computer programs. This forum is also extensively used by

academic and corporate researchers to recruit participants to complete online surveys or

computer-based experiments. At any given time, the forum will list several thousand job tasks or

research study postings which can be accessed by an estimated 500,000 online workers.

The Mechanical Turk workforce is made up of individuals from a diverse range of racial,

cultural, social-economic, and educational backgrounds. Members of the Mechanical Turk

workforce are not obligated to complete job assignments, can refuse to participate or cease to
 24
participate in a job task or research study without penalty. A recent analysis assessing the

validity of experiments performed using Mechanical Turk found that “respondents recruited in

this manner are often more representative of the U.S. population than in-person convenience

samples” (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012). The identities and personal information of

Mechanical Turk workers are protected by Amazon.com and are not available to researchers or

employers. Amazon.com collects a fee from the employer or researcher which is equivalent to

1% of the total dollar amount of compensation that a worker-participant receives for completing

a job task. Worker-participant compensation is deposited directly into the worker-participant’s

personal Amazon.com Payments Account via Amazon.com’s secure internet payments system.

Mechanical Turk workers-participants are not obligated to compensate Amazon.com in any way

to access assignments from the Mechanical Turk website or to participate in any job or research

assignment.

Method

Participants from the Mechanical Turk website were screened for eligibility to ensure that

only individuals who have actually experienced an encounter with the sacred took part in the

study. The initial Mechanical Turk web-posting invited individuals who were interested in

participating in a “study examining people’s emotions about important life events” to indicate

from a list of 10 different items which specific life events they have experienced (See Appendix

A). Two of the 10 items that were written by me specifically for this study reflect an encounter

with the sacred. Individuals who selected one of these two items (“Experienced the presence of

God or other divine force.” and “Had a profound spiritual or sacred experience.”) were

transferred to the main study website with a detailed description of the study. Participants were

not asked to respond to a broader question – such as “Had a profound experience” – to attempt to
 25
ensure that they described a religious or spiritual experience rather than an aesthetic or a social

experience. Participants initially read and agreed to the terms presented on the informed consent

page. They were then asked to recall a moment from their past when they personally experienced

an encounter with the sacred. Using an adaptation of Levine et al.’s (2002) Autobiographical

Memory Protocol (See Appendix C), participants were asked to provide a written description of

their sacred experience. They were prompted to describe specific details of their experience

(Appendix D), including the time and place of the event and any physical sensations, emotions or

cognitions that they experienced. Participants were also asked to provide a subjective rating of

how clearly they remembered their sacred encounter, how much their emotional state changed

during the encounter, the importance of the event to their life then and now, and how often they

think or talk about the event. After recalling their sacred experienced, participants were then

asked to complete the Sacred Emotions Scale (Appendix B), the Rational-Experiential Inventory

(Appendix E) , the Religious Orientation Scale, the Big Five Inventory (Appendix F), as well as

a number of demographic questions and questions about their spiritual beliefs.

Sample Characteristics

A total of 230 participants, all of whom were over 18 years of age, completed the study

on the Mechanical Turk platform. The sample was primarily Caucasian (83.0%), female

(66.4%), and Christian (70.4%). Because individuals were given the option of endorsing more

than one ethnic category, the breakdown of ethnic backgrounds sums to more than 100%: 8.5%

of the participants identified themselves as Latino or Hispanic, 7.8% as African-American or

Black, 5.1% as Asian or Pacific Islander while the remaining ethnic categories aggregated to

5.2% of the sample. A review of the religious affiliation data revealed the following

denominational affiliations for the Christian participants: Protestant, Roman Catholic, as well as
 26
the following breakdown for the non-Christian participants: Buddhist (2.2%), Jewish (1.3%),

Muslim (0.4%), Hindu (0.4%), Other (7.4%), Spiritual (7.8%), Atheist/Agnostic (5.2%), and

none (4.8%). The participants who identified themselves as atheists, agnostics or as having no

religious beliefs were grouped into a category (10.0%) of non-believers for subsequent analyses.

Participants were generally highly-educated: 64.8% of the participants described

themselves as having either partially or fully completed a college level degree while another

11.9% indicated they had completed a graduate level course or degree. 15.3% of the participants

had obtained a high school diploma, 5.2% had received a technical college or trade school

education while only 1.5% had partially completed high school. A breakdown of income levels

revealed a wide range of annual earnings: 30.9% of the participants reported earning less than

$25,000 per annum, 30.3% made between $25,000 to $49,999, 21.4% earned between $50,000 to

$74,999, 11.0% indicated that they earned between $75,000 to $100,000, and 6.4% reported an

annual income of greater than $100,000. The majority of participants reported being married

(39.8%) or living with a romantic partner (16.0%). A significant groups of participants indicated

being single (33.0%) with the remaining participants 10.2% identifying themselves as being

divorced (10.2%), widowed (1.2%), or endorsing other relationship status (1.7%). (See Tables 1

& 2 for a summary of sample characteristics.)

Measures

Sacred Emotions Scale. The proposed Sacred Emotions Scale (SES) is a 48 item self-

report scale intended to measure an individual’s emotional response to a personal encounter with

the sacred. The SES consists of 2 subscales, Sacred Awe (SA) and Sacred Fascination (SF),

representing two collections of emotions that are hypothesized to be distinctive to people’s

 27
psychological experience of the sacred. The SA and SF subscales each consist of 24 items for a

total of 48 items. The initial SES items were inspired by Rudolf Otto’s concepts of the

mysterium tremendum, and the mysterium fascinum. The items that make up the SA subscale

reflect the mixture of fear, respect, and dread that Otto called the mysterium tremendum. The SF

subscale encompasses the feelings of overwhelming curiosity and emotional ecstasy reflected in

the concept of the mysterium fascinum. The SA subscale consists of 16 statements describing

emotions consistent with an experience of religious awe (e.g. “I felt like I could cease to exist.”;

“I felt humble.”) and 8 items describing a behavior that may be performed by a person who is

experiencing the emotion of sacred awe (e.g. “Falling to my knees”, “Asking for forgiveness”).

Similarly, the SF subscale consists of 16 statements describing an emotion consistent with an

experience of religious fascination (“I wanted to draw closer to my experience”; “I felt that my

heart would burst with joy”) and 8 items describing a behavior that may be performed by a

person who is experiencing the emotion of sacred fascination (“Singing out loud”, “Reaching out

with my hands opened upwards”. Each item on the SES is rated on a 6-point scale (1 = “Not at

all”, 6 = “A great deal”). (See Appendix B for a complete list of all the items.) The items were

generated by the author of the study using inspiration from two types of sources: the descriptions

of emotions associated with religious experiences contained in the works of theorists such as

William James, Rudolf Otto, and Mircea Eliade, and the depictions of emotional episodes and

associated behaviors in religious texts such as the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Koran,

and the Bhagavad Gita.

Rational-Experiential Inventory – 40. The 40 item version of the Rational-Experiential

Inventory (REI-40) was derived from Epstein et al.’s (1996) original 51 item measure of

individual differences in the way people process information. Based on Epstein’s Cognitive
 28
Experiential Self Theory (CEST; Epstein, 1973), the REI is made up of two subscales – intuitive-

experiential and analytical-rational – that are governed by different cognitive decision making

rules. The intuitive-experiential subscale represents the degree to which an individual prefers to

utilize his or her intuition. The intuitive-experiential subscale also represents the degree to which

people prefer to utilize feedback regarding their emotional state to inform their understanding

and opinion of their environment. The analytical-rational subscale represents the degree to

which individuals assess their environment and events utilizing a more deliberate, systematic,

rational and analytical thinking style. The REI-40 consists of 20 items evaluating rationality

(e.g. “I have a logical mind.”; “I enjoy intellectual challenges.”) and 20 items evaluating

experientiality (e.g. “I believe in trusting my hunches.”; “I like to rely on my intuitive

impressions.”) that are rated on a 5-point scale (where 1 “definitely not true of myself” and 5 =

“definitely true of myself”). (Appendix E)

Measure of Personality. The Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991;

John & Srivastava, 1999; reprinted in Benet-Martínez & John, 1998) is a self-report inventory

designed to measure the Big Five dimensions of personality (i.e. openness to experience;

conscientiousness; extroversion; neuroticism; agreeableness). The inventory consists of 44 short-

phrase items, rated on a five point-scale (1 = “disagree strongly” to 5 “agree strongly”). The final

items were determined using an empirical item analysis to represent the main traits of each of the

Big Five domains (John, 1989, 1990). The BFI is widely used for research purposes. Its domain

scales have high reliability, significant self-peer agreement, and have shown strong convergence

with other longer Big Five measures (Benet-Martínez & John, 1998; John et al., 2008; Soto,

John, Gosling, & Potter, 2008).

 29
Religious Orientation Scale (ROS). The revised religious orientation scale (Gorsuch and

McPherson 1989) is a 14 item measure of religious orientation UDWHGRQD¿YH-point Likert scale

(1-‘‘not at all’’ to 5-‘‘very much’’). The ROS measures intrinsic religious orientation and two

types of extrinsic religious orientations: personal and social. People who score higher on intrinsic

orientation tend to view religion as an end in and of itself while people who score higher on

social extrinsic orientation (ESO) tend to view religion as a vehicle to serve social goals. An

individual with an extrinsic personal orientation regards religion as a means of fulfilling personal

needs such as comfort and relief. Batson and Schoenrade (1991) added a dimension to the

concept of religious orientation. The Quest orientation indicates how willing an individual is to

question complex ideas. The scale consists of 12 short-phrase items, rated on a seven point-scale

(1 = “disagree strongly” to 7 “agree strongly”). Individuals who score high on quest orientation

are open to the exploration of existential questions and leave room for new information as well

as ongoing doubts (McFarland & Warren, 1992). Individuals who are quest-oriented seek

answers to religious questions without an inclination to fixate on a single “correct” answer

(Batson & Schoenrade, 1991). Psychometric analysis of the quest orientation scale has shown it

to be composed of 3 sub-dimensions consisting of 1. Readiness to face existential questions

without reducing their complexity; 2. Self-criticism and perception of religious doubt as positive;

and, 3. Openness to change (Batson & Schoenrade, 1991). (Appendix H)

The Spiritual Well-Being Scale. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS; Paloutzian &

Ellison, 1991) is a general measure of spiritual well-being consisting of 20 items scored on a six-

point Likert scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Half of the SWBS items were

designed to measure spiritual well-being from a religious perspective (Religious Well-Being;

 30
RWB) and half of the items were created to measure spiritual well-being from an existential

perspective (Existential Well-Being, EWB).

The Satisfaction with Life Scale. The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et

al.,1985) is a measure of global life satisfaction The scale consists of 5 short-phrase items, rated

on a seven point-scale (1 = “disagree strongly” to 7 “agree strongly”). Previous research has

shown the SWLS to have high internal consistency, high test-retest reliability and moderate to

high correlation with other measures of subjective well-being. (See Appendix G)

Statistical Analyses

Data Analysis. The data were examined for completeness and for accuracy of data entry.

There were no missing values since the anonymous Mechanical Turk data entry system ensured

that participants needed to fully complete scales, measures, and demographic information while

proceeding through the survey. The data were also assessed to determine how well they satisfy

the assumptions of multivariate statistical analysis. Statistical tests for non-normalcy were

performed and data histograms were examined for visual evidence indicating non-normal

distributions. Variables which displayed excessive skewness or kurtosis were transformed to

minimize, to the extent possible, any violations of normalcy.

Factor Analysis. A test of sphericity was performed to confirm that the matrix of

correlations between the 48 SES scale items is factorable. An exploratory factor analysis was

then conducted to determine whether the SES factors into the two hypothesized dimensions.

Factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 produced by a principal components analysis were

considered for inclusion in the final model. An inspection of the scree plot and an examination of

the extent of cross loading determined the number of factors which seemed to best account for
 31
the data variance. While a principal axis factor analysis using an orthogonal VARIMAX rotation

makes it easier to interpret the results, a PROMAX algorithm was used because the awe and

fascination factors were correlated. The PROMAX algorithm performs an oblique rotation of the

factor structure to maximize high loadings and minimize low loadings. Subscales were formed

by summing the items on the respective subscale once empirical support for factors was

obtained. Coefficient alpha correlation statistics were calculated to determine the internal

consistency of each subscale. Scale items with an alpha correlation that exceeded 0.75 were

discarded or consolidated.

Regression Analysis. Correlational analyses between demographic factors, the faith

variables, and the SES were conducted to determine potential control variables for subsequent

regression analyses. Pearson correlations were also conducted to examine the zero-order

relationships between the SES and the other variables that have been linked theoretically to the

subscales. Separate regression analyses were then performed using the SES and its subscales as

the criterion variables. The total SES can serve as a criterion variable since the awe and

fascination factors are theorized to be correlated. Demographic and faith control variables were

entered into the equations as appropriate. Predictor variables were then entered individually into

the multivariate regressions to test the hypothesized relationships between the SES, its subscales,

and other variables for which data has been collected. Non-theoretical multivariate models were

also constructed to test the predictive power of variables which showed statistically significant

correlations with the SES and its subscales.

 32
RESULTS

The organization of the results section reflects the order in which the analyses were

conducted. The first section addresses the integrity and the completeness of the data variables by

reviewing whether the Mechanical Turk website properly captured, stored and transmitted all

participant responses. It also analyzes the compliance of the data with the assumptions

underlying the techniques of inferential analysis. The second section describes the results of a

set of exploratory factor analyses conducted in order to determine whether the proposed scale

items represent the theorized factors of Spiritual Awe and Spiritual Fascination. The third

section presents descriptive information on the scales created based on the factor analyses. The

fourth section presents the results of a series of t-tests and ANOVAs examining whether

demographic variables and/or religious denominational affiliation affected participants’ mean

responses on the SES scale. The results of correlational and regression analyses examining the

relationship between the SES, its sub-scales and the additional measures for which data were

collected comprises the fifth section. The final section includes quotes from the open-ended

responses to illustrate general themes relating to participants’ sacred experiences.

Data Review

The variables of interest were examined for accuracy, missing values, and compliance

with the assumptions of multivariate analysis prior to conducting any statistical analyses. This

review confirmed, as expected due to the nature of the data collection process, that none of the

measures were missing values. Statistical tests for non-normalcy indicated the presence of

statistically significant skewedness and/or kurtosis for the Spiritual Awe and Spiritual

Fascination subscale scores. Inspection of the frequency histograms for these data sets revealed
 33
that Spiritual Fascination was moderately negatively skewed and that Spiritual Awe was

moderately positively skewed. The data for both these subscales was transformed using the

procedures recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) and Howell (2007). Regressions were

performed subsequent to transforming the subscales scores by taking their square root. Since the

regressions performed with the transformed variables did not differ substantively from those

performed with the untransformed versions of the Spiritual Awe and Spiritual Fascination

variables, the reported results reflect the analyses of the untransformed data.

Exploratory Factor Analysis

An exploratory factor analysis was conducted prior to testing the relationship between the

Sacred Experiences Scale, its subscales and other psychological measures of interest. Bartlett’s

test of sphericity confirmed that the SES matrix of correlations was factorable. A principal

components analysis was used to identify the number of factors. Five factors with eigenvalues

greater than 1.00 were extracted. Since this criterion often overestimates the number of factors,

an analysis of the eigenvalues was conducted. The eigenvalues for the first two factors were

11.16 and 7.18, while the remaining three factors were 2.31, 1.91 and 1.02. Inspection of the

Scree plot also suggested a discontinuity between the second and third factors as well as the

fourth and fifth factors. Factor 5 was excluded immediately because its negligible item loadings

contributed virtually no additional explanatory power. Factors three and four had relatively few

significant item loadings while many of the items were cross-loaded. On the basis of this

information, it appeared that a two-factor solution would best account for the shared variance

between the items.

 34
A principal axis factor analyses was conducted using the oblique Promax rotation

because the underpinning theory for this research suggested that the factors would be correlated.

A two-factor solution was requested in the first analysis. This solution accounted for

approximately 66.2% of the shared variance. The first factor accounted for approximately 40.3%

of the shared variance while the second factor accounted for approximately 25.9% of the shared

variance (see Table 3 for the factor loadings and communalities). Items had to have a loading of

at least 0.32 on a factor in order to be included in the interpretation of that factor. All but 2 items

met this criterion for at least one factor while 43 items had factor loadings greater than 0.50. The

cross-loading criterion was specified by comparing each item’s primary and secondary factor

loadings. Only items with a discrepancy between primary and secondary loadings of at least

0.20 were considered for retention (Matsunaga, 2010). Five items failed to meet this cross-

loading criterion. Most statistical reference sources fail to consider the question of negative

cross-loadings on the secondary factor (Knafl & Grey, 2007). Walker and Maddan (2012)

indicate that secondary negative factor loadings may arise due to the use of an oblique rotation.

They suggest considering the retention of such items in order to better model the complex

relationships that underlie human behavior. Items with negative secondary cross-loadings were

accordingly included in the subscales and in subsequent analyses.

Three-factor and four-factor models were also analyzed in order to rule out the possibility

of a solution consisting of more than two factors. These models accounted for approximately

74.5% and 81.5%, respectively, of the shared variance. The prevalence of cross-loaded items

suggested a weak theoretical basis for these additional factors (seven of the eight items

comprising the fourth factor and fifteen of the twenty-two items comprising the third factor also

cross-loaded significantly (0.20 or greater) with either the first or second factors). An inspection
 35
of the specific third factor items indicated that these items constituted a subsection of the items

contained in the first factor. Specifically, these items all were analogous behavioral items.

The two-factor solution was preferable to both the three- and four-factor solutions. The

pattern of item loadings in the two-factor solution was much clearer and more readily

interpretable. The two-factor solution revealed a theoretically justifiable solution which was

more consistent with the patterns of emotions proposed at the outset of this paper than the item

loadings in either the three- or four-factor solutions. The distribution of items across the factors

in this solution, however, required that the subscales be renamed Spiritual Exuberance and

Spiritual Dread. The Awe item for which the second subscale had been named had unexpectedly

shifted to the first subscale. The first subscale was renamed Sacred Exuberance because the

highest loading item – I felt that my heart would burst with joy – describes that emotion

extremely well.

An analysis of the two factor solution led to an elimination of seven of the original 48

scale items. Two of the 48 items, item 34 (“Being perfectly still and quiet”) and item 35

(“Closing my eyes”), loaded on neither factor one nor factor two. It is possible that these two

items did not load because they were both passive behavioral responses that were not easily

associated with a specific emotion. An additional five items were excluded due to excessive

cross loading. The remaining 41 items comprised the final version of the SES. These items were

assigned to two subscales according to the individuals items’ respective factor loadings (See

Table 4). All subsequent analyses were conducted using this final 41 item version of the SES.
 36
Internal Consistency and Descriptive Statistics

The correlation of -.21 between the two sub-scales justified the use of an oblique Promax

rotation. Nevertheless, the two sub-scales appeared to constitute distinct factors which

differentiated clearly between positive and negative items. Both sub-scales had an estimated

Cronbach’s alpha coefficient in excess of .90 indicating high levels of internal consistency.

Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for Sacred Exuberance and Sacred Dread were .93 and .91

respectively.

The total SES score constitutes a measure of the presence of an inventory of emotions

theorized to characterize people’s experience of the sacred and the intensity of those emotions.

One of the underlying theoretical hypotheses of this study was that people’s emotional

experience of the sacred is characterized by a mixture of both positive and negative emotions.

Positive and negative emotions may constitute separate dichotomous psychological constructs.

They are the two simultaneously occurring components of people’s overall emotional response to

sacred experiences as measured by the SES total score. Reverse coding is required when the

scale contains negatively worded items that measure the same type of response as positively

worded items. All the items were capturing emotions that were measured in the same direction

(i.e. low to high). None of them were worded in such a way that a high score on one item would

indicate a low level of emotion. Since there were no negatively phrased items measuring the

same type of emotional response and since none of the Dread items “cancelled out” any of the

Exuberance items, there was no need to reverse code any items. Since the correlation of -.15

between Sacred Exuberance and Sacred Dread corresponds to the two subscales sharing

approximately 2.25% of their variance, it is also possible that reverse scoring the Sacred Dread

scores to create a total SES score would leave the results of the inferential analyses unchanged.
 37
Theorists have suggested that positive and negative states constitute distinct and

independent dimensions of experience (Bonnano, Goorin, & Coifman, 2008). There exists a

substantial body of research supporting the argument that positive and negative emotional

responses constitute independent affective factors which can nevertheless occur simultaneously

(Merz & Roesch, 2011). Short-term positive and negative affect seems more likely to occur

simultaneously than long-term positive and negative affect. Researchers have found more

evidence for momentary independence of affect than for independence of structural affect (Lucas

& Diener, 2008; Schimmack, 2008).

Watson and Tellegen proposed a two-factor model for the structure of affect in 1985.

Their theory built on evidence reported by Diener and Emmons (1984) indicating that positive

and negative affect constitute independent psychological constructs. The dual-structure theory of

affect was operationalized through the development of the Positive and Negative Affect

Schedule (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The PANAS has become the instrument

researchers most frequently use to measure emotional responses (Terracciano, McRae, Costa,

2003). Watson and his colleagues maintained that positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA)

constituted independent factors despite statistically significant negative correlations between the

PA and NA scales ranging from -.12 to -.23. They argued that the factors are “largely

independent” since the negative intercorrelations, which correspond to the two scales sharing

approximately between 1% and 5% of their variance, were too weak to suggest non-

independence. Subsequent analyses have reported results ranging from a zero correlation (Pettit,

Kline, Gencoz, Gencoz, & Joiner, 2001) to a weak negative correlation (Crawford & Henry,

2004) between PA and NA.

 38
There exists an ongoing dispute regarding the extent and the nature of the association

between the positive and negative affective factors. Researchers who have used confirmatory

factors analyses to attempt to resolve this dispute have suggested that positive and negative affect

are distinct and separate constructs which can moderately co-occur (Terracciano, McRae, Costa,

2003; Crawford & Henry, 2004; Merz & Roesch, 2011). This body of theoretical work and

empirical evidence suggests that positive and negative emotional responses – in particular

measures of transitory state affect - could be treated as data which can be analyzed separately.

After the scales were found to be internally consistent, average item and total scale scores

for each of the two factors were calculated by summing and averaging the participants’ responses

on the items that loaded adequately and primarily on the respective factors (see Table 5 for the

PHDQVVWDQGDUGGHYLDWLRQVDQGĮFRHIILFLHQWV7KHVHUHVXOWs indicated higher average item

means for the Exuberance sub-scale and greater variance for the Dread sub-scale.

T-TESTs and ANOVAs

A statistical analysis was conducted to assess whether demographic variables and/or

religious beliefs affected participant responses on the SES scale. Participants were grouped by

gender, level of education, marital status, ethnic background, income levels, and religious

affiliation. A series of t-tests and ANOVAs were conducted to determine whether the means for

the SES scale differed between relevant participant groups. The SES scores of male participants

(M=149.69, SD=30.50) did not differ significantly from those of female participants (M=150.21,

SD=28.53), (p=.899). SES scores were not significantly different for participants grouped

according to marital status and education levels: living together, engaged, and married

(M=148.22, SD=27.48) vs. single, separated, divorced, and widowed (M=152.53, SD=28.88)
 39
(p=.266) and less than college education (M=154.53, SD=32.23) vs. college education and

graduate school (M=149.70, SD=27.97) (p=.301). Ethnic background and income levels also did

not seem to significantly affect participant SES scores. One-way ANOVAs showed that the

effect of ethnic background F(2,193) = .661, p = .517 and income levels F(2,227) = .763, p =

.467 were not statistically significant.

The most important results of the t-test and ANOVA analyses, in the context of the

study’s objectives, indicated that neither religious beliefs nor religious affiliation seemed to

significantly affect participant SES scores. No significant differences in SES scores were found

between participants grouped as non-believers (agnostics/atheists) (M=149.09, SD=28.36) and

believers (M=150.91, SD=29.04) (p=.775), Christians (M=152.40, SD=28.43) and spiritually-

oriented believers (M=159.78, SD=24.73) (p=.292), and Catholics (M=145.26, SD=23.67) vs.

Protestants (M=150.16, SD=28.51) (p=.436).

Correlational and Regression Analyses

Participants completed a variety of measures of subjective well-being, personality, and

religious orientation. A correlational analysis was conducted to examine the relationship

between the SES total scale, the SES sub-scales and the additional measures for which data were

collected (see Table 6 for the full results of this analysis). The statistically significant

correlations were highlighted for further analysis. The SES scale was positively correlated with

the Experiential Engagement subscale of the Rational Experiential Inventory (r = .14),

Extraversion (r = .23), Openness (r = .20), Satisfaction With Life (r = .22), Intrinsic religious

orientation (r = .25), Extrinsic religious orientation (r = .26), Extrinsic Personal (r = .28),

Extrinsic Social (r = .14), Quest (r = .14), and Existential Quest (r = 17). The SES scale was
 40
negatively correlated with the Religious Well Being subscale of the Spiritual Well Being scale (r

= .22).

The Sacred Exuberance subscale was associated with the Experiential Ability subscale of

the Rational Experiential Inventory (r = 16), the Experiential Engagement subscale of the

Rational Experiential Inventory (r = .20), Extraversion (r =.20), Openness (r = .22), Satisfaction

With Life (r = .24), Intrinsic religious orientation (r = .28), Extrinsic religious orientation (r

=.20), Extrinsic Personal (r = .23), and Existential Quest (r = .15). The Sacred Exuberance sub-

scale was negatively correlated with the Religious Well Being subscale of the Spiritual Well

Being scale (r = .28). The Sacred Dread sub-scale was related only to the Extrinsic religious

orientation subscale with a positive correlation of(r = .14).

Hierarchal multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the relationship between

the SES, its sub-scales, and the measures that had been theorized to affect participant responses

(see Table 7 for a summary of the regression results). Hierarchical regressions in which

responses from the SES constituted the dependent variable were conducted. No control variables

were used since the T-test and ANOVA analyses indicated that demographic variables did not

affect participant responses on the SES. Participant scores on the three religious orientation

subscales were entered as independent variables in the first regression in the following order:

Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Quest. The regression model had statistical significance (p <.0001) and

explained .13 of the variance. Intrinsic (B = .79), Extrinsic (B = .69) and Quest (B = .33) all

significantly predicted SES scores. Participant scores on the two Extrinsic orientation subscales

were entered as independent variables in the second regression in the following order: Extrinsic

Personal, Extrinsic Social. The regression model had statistical significance (p <.0001) and

explained .07 of the variance. Only the Extrinsic Personal variable was statistically significant
 41
(B = 1.59). A third regression was conducted using scores on the two Spiritual Well-Being

subscales as independent variables entered in the following order: Spiritual Well-Being

Existential (“SWBE”), Spiritual Well-Being Religious (“SWBR”). The regression model had

statistical significance (P = .0002) and explained .08 of the variance. While the SWBR variable

was statistically significant (B = -2.43), the SWBE variable was not statistically significant. All

the regression betas were consistent with the direction of the Pearson correlations.

Since the same measures had been theorized to affect participant responses on the SES

sub-scales, similar hierarchical regressions were conducted in which scores from the Sacred

Exuberance subscale constituted the dependent variable. The regression model using Intrinsic,

Extrinsic, and Quest as independent variables had statistical significance (P <.0001) and

explained .12 of the variance. The Intrinsic (B = .28) and Quest (B = .18) variables were

statistically significant at the .01 level or better while the Extrinsic variable failed to achieve

statistical significance. The regression model using scores on the two Extrinsic orientation

subscales as independent variables had statistical significance (P = .037) and explained .03 of the

variance. Only the Extrinsic Personal (B = .40) variables statistically significantly predicted the

Sacred Exuberance subscale scores. The third regression, using scores on the two Spiritual Well-

Being subscales as independent variables reached statistical significance (P < .001) and

explained .08 of the variance. The SWBR variable was statistically significant (B = -.88) while

the SWBE variable failed to achieve statistical significance. All of the regression effects were

consistent with the direction of the Pearson correlations. None of the regression models using the

Dread sub-scale of the SES as a dependent variable achieved statistical significance.

The correlation analysis revealed statistically significant relationships between the SES

and its sub-scales and the measures of personality, subjective well-being, and religious
 42
orientation which had not been hypothesized. A series of non-theoretical hierarchical multiple

regression models was accordingly constructed to test the explanatory power of these measures.

Multiple regression analyses were performed using the SES scores as the criterion variable. The

predictor variables Extraversion, Satisfaction With Life, and Experiential Ability were entered in

the first of these models. The resulting model was statistically significant (P = .0002) and

accounted for .06 of the variance in the SES scale. Extraversion (B = 1.56) and Satisfaction With

Life (B = .89) were statistically significant predictor variables while Experiential Ability was not

statistically significant. A second model was constructed by adding Experiential Engagement,

Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Existential, Doubt, Change, and SWBR to Extraversion and Satisfaction

With Life. The resulting statistically significant model (P < .0001) explained more of the

variance (.13) in SES scores than the first model. Extraversion (B = 1.58) remained statistically

significant while Intrinsic (B = .56), Extrinsic (B = .66) , and Existential (B = .63) replaced SWL

as statistically significant variables. The remaining predictor variables failed to achieve statistical

significance. An additional regression model was built by adding Quest and SWBR to the

statistically significant variables from the previous regression. This model accounted for less of

the variance in SES scores (p <.0001, R2 = .09) than the previous regression model. All of the

betas in the three regression models fell in the same direction as the Pearson correlations.

Multiple regression analyses were also performed using the Exuberance and Dread sub-

scale scores as the criterion variables. Since the SES scale scores and the Exuberance sub-scales

scores were correlated with many of the scores from the same measures, similar non-theoretical

regression models were constructed. The predictor variables Extraversion, Satisfaction With

Life, and Experiential Ability were entered in the first of these models. The resulting model was

statistically significant (P = .0002) and accounted for .09 of the variance in the SES scale.
 43
Extraversion (B = .66) and Satisfaction With Life (B = .35) were statistically significant predictor

variables while Experiential Ability was not statistically significant. A second model was

constructed by adding Experiential Engagement, Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Existential, Doubt, Change,

and SWBR to Extraversion and Satisfaction With Life. The resulting statistically significant

model (P < .0001) explained more of the variance (.12) in SES scores than the first model.

Extraversion (B = .66) and SWL (B = .24) remained statistically significant variables.

Experiential Engagement (B = .13), Intrinsic (B = .18), and Existential (B = .26) predicted

subscale scores while the remaining predictor variables failed to achieve statistical significance.

An additional regression model was built by adding Quest and SWBR to the statistically

significant variables from the previous regression. This model accounted for less of the variance

in SES scores (p< .0001, R2 = .12) than the previous regression model. A regression model was

also constructed using the scores on the 5 Personality factors as predictor variables. While this

model accounted for only .09 of the variance in the Exuberance sub-scale scores (p <.0001 ),

Extraversion (B = .61), Openness (B = .56), and Neuroticism (B = .68) all constituted statistically

significant predictor variables. All of the regression effects were consistent with the direction of

the Pearson correlations. None of the regression models using the Dread subscale of the SES as a

criterion variable achieved statistical significance.

Responses to Open-Ended Questions about the Sacred Experience

Participants were asked to describe a sacred experience which had occurred in the past.

The average latency of these reported experiences was approximately 8 years and 2 months.

Participants reported a wide range of spiritual encounters with the sacred. Responses could be

generally grouped using two dimensions: traditional theistic belief structures versus non-

traditional spiritual belief structures and sacred encounters that occurred during religious
 44
activities versus sacred encounters that occurred during non-religious activities. The following

abridged but otherwise verbatim quotes constitute representative examples for each of these

categories.

Sacred encounters involving a deity. 1. “One night, when I was at my lowest, I cried out

and actually heard the voice of God instruct me not to give up, that He would take care of me

and I would know when I needed to make the next step.” 2. “The moon was sitting behind a

cloud when I started the chant, and as soon as I was done, the moon came out and shined brightly

on my face. I was suddenly filled with a light, airy feeling. I danced and I danced, and I literally

felt completely moved in heart and soul. I feel like the Goddess was really smiling on me and my

choice of spiritual path that night.”

Sacred encounters not involving a deity. 1. “There was a lightness that came upon me and

I knew I wasn't alone. It was relieving and felt like I was breathing new air. The powers I felt

were divine and lifted me up and made me feel secure.” 2. “While meditating on if I was on the

right path, I had a feeling of unconditional love and joy come over me. Everything in my mind

became clear. I felt at peace. It seemed I was finally living in my truth.”

Sacred encounters that occurred during religious practices. 1. “I was at church, singing

songs and focusing on God. I felt in awe of God. He gave me peace and joy. I felt refreshed as I

stood with my eyes closed, worshiping.” 2. “I attended a Satsung […] during the chanting I

became saturated with joy until I was crying tears of love and joy. I felt as if I was floating, like

nothing could hurt me. I felt one with God and everything in the universe.”

Sacred encounters that did not occur during religious practices. 1. “I was standing and

looking out the window with my arms wrapped tight against myself […] I felt pressure on my
 45
left arm just above my elbow....like someone squeezing your arm to let you know, "it's okay, I

understand...it'll be okay." I looked down and realized there was no one there. I firmly believe it

was an angel.” 2. “I had a very vivid dream of the forces of good and evil fighting over my spirit.

When I woke up I had a feeling of calmness and safeness come over me. I released that that the

angels had won and they would watching over me and protecting me from this point forward.”
 46
DISCUSSION

The aim of this study was to construct a scale that captures a set of emotions

characterizing individuals’ religious experiences. The design of the scale was partially derived

from Rudolf Otto’s conceptualization of the religious experience. Otto’s theory was

operationalized by creating a set of 32 positively and negatively valenced emotion items. The

composition of the scale was also inspired by research linking emotions and behaviors (Frijda,

N.H., 2004). Research has shown not only that pre-existing emotional states affect people’s

cognitions (Oatley, K., Parrott, W.G., Smith, C., & Watts, F., 2011), attention (Shafer et al.,

2012), and motivate their behaviors (Panksepp, J., 2004), but also that people’s actual behaviors

often result in the experience of emotions (Harmon & Peterson, 2009; Laird, 2007; Kellerman,

Lewis, & Laird, 1989). Accordingly, an additional 16 behavioral actions, designed to be

analogous to the emotional items, were included in the scale.

The study’s findings provided encouraging evidence for the use of the SES along with its

two sub-scales as a measure of the emotions associated with religious and spiritual experiences.

These results, however, mandated a considerable departure from Otto’s ideas. Otto’s

conceptualization of the two dimensions comprising people’s religious experiences depended

largely on the concepts of awe and fascination. The term awe, which has historically indicated a

nuanced mix of attraction and fear, has evolved linguistically into a purely positive term. Since

the factor analysis of the SES differentiated clearly between positive and negative items, the item

containing awe, the defining term for the proposed second sub-scale, had migrated to the first

factor. These sub-scales were accordingly renamed Sacred Exuberance and Sacred Dread. While

we use simple dichotomous labels to describe emotions, people do not experience discrete

emotions. Their emotional responses to phenomena tend to be ambivalent and complex.

 47
Researchers studying emotional experience and expression have proposed two primary

contending theories to explain the structure of affect. Proponents of the bipolar theory of emotion

suggest that since positive affect and negative affect constitute the polar sides of a single

dimension, experiencing one emotion indicates the absence of the opposite emotion (Green,

Goldman, & Salovey, 1993). Accordingly, positive affect is theorized to be strongly inversely

correlated with negative affect since the more often an individual feels positive emotions, the

less often that person should feel negative emotions (Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons, 1985).

Proponents of the theory that positive affect and negative affect are constructs which represent

two distinct dimensions argue that the affective factors are largely independent (Watson, Clark,

& Tellegen, 1988). Positive affect is accordingly theorized to be either uncorrelated or weakly

inversely correlated with negative affect since an individual can experience both positive and

negative emotions simultaneously (Merz & Roesch, 2011). The modest negative correlation

between the Sacred Exuberance and Sacred Dread subscales fits with the dual factor theory of

the structure of affect. Summing the subscale scores conforms to Otto’s theory that people’s

response to the Mysterium is made up of a complex combination of positive and negative

emotions. While Otto had little interest in the field of psychology, his theory appears to be

consistent with the dual factor theory of the structure of affect. By extension, Otto would likely

have supported the idea that the study’s empirical findings – a weak negative correlation between

the subscales – are consistent with the theory that individuals can experience positive and

negative affect at the same time.

The SES and its renamed sub-scales retained 41 of the original 48 scale items. Two of the

items, item 34 (“Being perfectly still and quiet”) and item 35 (“Closing my eyes”), failed to load

adequately. It is possible that these two items did not load because they both constituted passive
 48
behavioral responses which could not be readily associated with a specific or a distinct emotion.

One of the original emotion items was excluded due to excessive cross-loading. All 16 of the

original analogous action items, which were included to investigate the hypothesized close

relationship between people’s emotions and their behaviors, were heavily endorsed by

participants. Four of these items, despite achieving high factor loadings, could not be assigned to

either of the sub-scales. The pattern of participant responses nevertheless seemed to validate the

inclusion of action items in the sacred emotions scale.

Since the study’ results suggest that individuals’ experience of the sacred can be

quantified and/or measured in terms of their emotions and related behaviors, the SES and its sub-

scales may provide insight into the psychological processes and mechanisms underlying their

spiritual experiences. The use of an emotion-based measure substantively derived from a well-

established psychological construct and a substantive body of research would enable researchers

to apply greater empirical rigor to the study of religious experiences. The study’s results also

suggest that people’s experience of their emotions is grounded in their physical behaviors. Future

research examining psychologically complex experiences such as religious experiences may be

able to document a more complete version of people’s emotional experiences by avoiding the use

of measures which are comprised strictly of emotion-label words.

Very little of the research in the field of the psychology of religion has used experimental

paradigms (Park, 2012). Greater use of measures such as the SES may provide a means of

transcending the limitations inherent in non-experimental studies. For example, measuring the

emotions individuals experience during sacred moments may provide insights into the nature of

the psychological mechanisms which are responsible for the linkages between religion and health

outcomes. Testing whether people are actually experiencing the types of emotions which
 49
characterize religious and spiritual experiences in situations when they are employing religious

coping tools may help explain how religion affects the ways people cope with life stressors.

Individual differences in the experience of religious emotions might also help researchers

understand when and why spiritually based interventions fail or succeed.

The SES’ utility as a research tool may be enhanced by the fact that it appears to produce

readily interpretable results. For example, the total Sacred Exuberance and Sacred Dread scale

scores were modestly negatively correlated. This suggests that individuals may manifest diverse

patterns of positive and negative emotions. The correlation and regression analyses produced a

combination of expected and unexpected results. As predicted, individuals who scored high in

Experiential processing style also scored high on the SES. This suggests that these individuals

may be especially sensitive to the emotional nature of their sacred experience. The finding that

people higher in experiential ability and experiential engagement tended to score higher in the

SES and the Exuberance subscale accords with Maas and van den Bos’ (2009) finding that

people with an experiential processing style tended to be much more influenced by individual

differences in affect intensity than individuals with a rationalistic processing style. Research has

also shown that people’s reactions to events are moderated not only by individual differences in

affective-experiential processing style, but also by individual differences in intensity of affective

response (Maas & van den Bos, 2009; Larsen, Billings, & Cutler, 1996; Larsen, Diener,

Cropanzano, 1987; Larsen, Diener, & Emmons, 1986).

The results of the correlation analysis supported the hypothesis that individuals with an

Intrinsic religious orientation would achieve high SES scores. These individuals also scored

high on both the Exuberance and the Dread subscales. These findings accord with the research
 50
literature indicating that individuals with an intrinsic religious orientation are attuned to and

derive reward from their emotional experience of religion.

Some of the findings were unexpected. Individuals who scored high in Rational

processing style did not score lower on the SES as hypothesized. This result, however, is not

inconsistent with Epstein’s (1994) cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) of perception.

While the CEST, along with research validating the CEST, suggests that some individuals have a

preference for processing information in a rational way, a tendency to think rationally does not

imply that such individuals are unaffected by emotionally evocative situations, nor that they

never process information in an experiential way (Epstein et al., 1996).

Individuals who score higher on Neuroticism had been predicted to score higher on the

SES. Although prior research results have demonstrated a correlation between neuroticism and

negative affect (Amin, Constable, & Canli, 2004; Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, &

Williams, 1992), there was no relationship between neuroticism and the SES or its sub-scales.

This result suggests that the negative emotions which may characterize some individuals’

experience of the sacred are not a function of this aspect of personality.

It is notable that individuals who scored higher on extroversion also scored surprisingly

higher on the SES total and, in particular, on the Exuberance sub-scale. Prior research

examining the relationship between the personality trait of extroversion and the psychological

construct of emotion suggests two possible explanations for this finding. Firstly, research has

shown that individuals high in extroversion tend to have a bias for positively valenced stimuli

(Amin, Constable, & Canli, 2004). Secondly, extroverted individuals have been shown to tend

to be more emotionally expressive (Riggio & Riggio, 2002).

 51
Hypotheses relating to the sub-scales were affected by the reallocation of scale items

which transformed the Sacred Fascination and Sacred Awe sub-scales into the Sacred

Exuberance and Sacred Dread sub-scales. Individuals with a high Quest religious orientation had

been predicted to score high on the Awe sub-scale. Even though individuals who scored high on

Quest Orientation did not score high on either of the new sub-scales, the hypothesis is generally

supported by the correlation between a high Quest Orientation and high scores on the SES. These

results suggest that individuals with a quest orientation characterized by a greater openness and

willingness to question and explore personal religious values and identity (Messayb, B., Dixona,

L.J., & Ryec, M.S., 2012) consistently and frequently experience a mixture of intense positive

and negative emotions in connection with the sacred.

The study’s findings did not support the hypothesis that individuals who scored high on

the Dread sub-scale would score lower on Satisfaction with Life. The lack of a relationship

between the negative emotion sub-scale and SWL may be related to the nature of the construct

we are measuring. An individual’s experience of negative emotions during an encounter with

the sacred does not necessarily indicate that this individual experiences high levels of negative

affect in general. If emotions that characterize a particular sacred experience are transitory in

nature, then they may not impact a person’s satisfaction with life in general. This may also

suggest that although negative emotions can arise during a sacred moment, this does not

necessarily constitute a harmful psychological experience.

Individuals who scored high on Exuberance had been hypothesized to score high on

Religious Satisfaction while, conversely, individuals who scored high on Dread had been

hypothesized to score low on Religious Satisfaction. The linkages were expected to work as

follows: people who scored high in Exuberance would experience higher satisfaction with life
 52
which would translate into high religious satisfaction while people who scored low in

Exuberance would experience lower satisfaction with life which would translate into low

religious satisfaction. Although individuals who scored high on Exuberance and on the overall

SES did report higher levels of satisfaction with life, this did not translate into a high level of

satisfaction with their religious lives. While other studies have shown a positive correlation

between satisfaction with life and religious well-being, this study’s findings indicated a negative

correlation of -0.276 (p<.0001) between satisfaction with life and spiritual well-being. The

Spiritual Well Being Scale measures both existential and spiritual well-being. All the items that

measure spiritual well-being make specific references to “God”. If a relationship with “God”

does not lie at the center of an individual’s religious identity or sacred beliefs, then the scale may

not properly measure their satisfaction with their religious life. Since a significant portion of the

study’s participant sample identified as atheistic, agnostic or spiritual (17.8%) or as Christian but

non-denominational (28.7%), such individuals may not have identified with an overtly theistic

conceptualization of the sacred.

The non-theoretical hierarchical multivariate regression models provided only limited

insight into the nature of the relationship between the SES, its sub-scales and the additional

measures for which data were collected. Regressions had low explanatory power without loading

a large number of predictor variables. The composition of regression models with numerous

predictor variables turned out to be highly unstable as the list of statistically significant variables

proved to be highly changeable across models. For instance, while the positive correlation

between the SES and the Openness to experience factor of the BFI confirmed a hypothesized

relationship, Openness to experience ceased to be a statistically significant variable when loaded

into multivariate regression models.

 53
Interestingly, in comparison to the Exuberance scale, the Dread scale was linked with

fewer significant findings. When positive and negative affect are measured separately, they often

correlate differently with other psychological variables (Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons,

1985). Trait or dispositional affect and state or situational affect also appear to be associated to

other psychological constructs in different ways. (Merz & Roesch, 2011). The presence of

negative emotions in a person’s experience of the sacred likely constitutes state affect - a set of

emotions which arises transiently in response to this particular experience. Such an occurrence

does not appear to hold strong implications for how individuals feel about themselves, their life

in general, or their satisfaction with their religious or spiritual life. State affect would likely

relate strongly to other measures of emotion (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). State negative

affect has been linked to self-esteem and to measures of achievement (Merz & Roesch, 2011).

While state negative affect has been associated with depression, fluctuations in negative

emotionality have been shown to be a particularly useful predictor of changes in depression

(Clark, Vittengl, Kraft, & Jarrett, 2003). These constructs were not measured in this study. It is

possible that Dread may have more significant effects when it is perceived more consistently. A

longitudinal study could be designed to test the possible effects of multiple exposures to sacred

experiences.

One of the objectives of this research was to compose a scale which could be used to

measure the emotional experience of people from as wide a range of belief systems and cultures

as possible. In order to achieve this, individual scale items were intentionally written to be

neutral with respect to specific religious belief systems. The proposed scale was also intended to

encompass the emotional response to the sacred experiences of individuals without religious,

spiritual or theistic beliefs. The set of emotion and action items chosen for the scale was
 54
theorized to elicit a response pattern that would be common not only to people of different

religious beliefs and faiths but also to Agnostics, Atheists, and individuals with no spiritual or

religious affiliation.

The study’s results provide preliminary evidence suggesting the presence of a common

set of emotional responses to the experience of the sacred separate and distinct from people’s

cognitive understanding of their religious beliefs. Individual religious beliefs - what a person

believes the sacred to be, whether a person is religious, or whether a person believes in God - did

not seem to affect people's emotional experience of the sacred. These results provide support for

a more phenomenological definition of people's religious and spiritual lives which deemphasizes

distinctions due to religious beliefs and affiliations. This has potentially significant implications

for future research in the field of the psychology of religion. Research underpinned by theoretical

assumptions which emphasize the psychological implications of differences in specific belief

systems may be limiting the scope of understanding of religious related human behavior and may

be misattributing causal factors.

As predicted, the participants grouped as agnostics/atheists did not experience

significantly different emotional responses to the sacred from the religious believers. Future

research in the field of the psychology of religion should increasingly include

nondenominational, non-religion specific, and atheist populations. The relevance of such a more

inclusive approach to understanding the nature of spiritual and religious experiences is supported

by recent demographic research documenting that a growing number of people ascribe to no

religious or spiritual beliefs (“religiously unaffiliated” or “nones”), or are atheists and/or

agnostics. The results of the Pew Research Center’s summer 2012 Religion and Politics Survey

indicates that the fastest growing category of respondents - one-fifth of Americans and one-third
 55
of individuals under the age of 30 – are religiously unaffiliated. The same study found that

nearly 6% of the U.S. population is comprised of self-described agnostics and atheists and that

approximately 14% of the population has no particular religious affiliation. The existence of an

empirically validated measure of religious experience that includes the religiously unaffiliated is

thus both timely and warranted.

The finding that demographic and socioeconomic variables did not appear to affect

responses to the SES was notable. Widely documented gender differences in emotional

functioning feature important differences in emotional experience and expression (Brody & Hall,

2008). Women have rated themselves as being more emotionally expressive than men in

numerous studies (Simon & Nath, 2004). Women typically describe their specific emotional

experiences with greater intensity than men (Tobin, Graziano, Vanman, & Tassinary, 2000).

Individuals’ emotional experiences also often depend on social and cultural context (Shweder,

Haidt, Horton, & Joseph, 2008). It would have been reasonable to expect, in this context, that

men, women, and individuals from varying ethnic backgrounds might emotionally respond

differently to sacred experiences. T-Test and ANOVA analyses, however, indicated that factors

which make up a person’s social identity - gender, level of education, marital status, ethnic

background, and income levels – failed to cause statistically significant differences in SES

scores. These results seem to suggest that individuals who have experienced an encounter with

the sacred may share a common set of emotional responses which appear to transcend

demographic factors which are often associated with differences in emotional experience and

expression.
 56
Limitations and Future Directions

While the SES appears to hold considerable promise as a measure of emotional responses

to sacred experiences, it has not been validated. This study collected data from only one group of

participants. The lack of a validation sample made it impossible to perform a confirmatory factor

analysis. The study was not designed to assess whether the SES predicts various criteria over

and above other predictors. The SES needs to be statistically validated before it can be used in

future research.

The scope of the current study is limited by its cross-sectional design. While the study’s

findings did not demonstrate any strong relationships between participant scores on the SES and

on measures of psychological and spiritual well-being, the research paradigm involved

participants recalling only a single spiritual experience. It is possible that repeated exposure to

the same sacred experience drawn from an individual’s memory or to the recall of multiple

spiritual experiences may be necessary to demonstrate such an effect. A study assessing the

effect of multiple memory-recall sacred experiences over a period of several months on mood

disorders and depression may be practically useful to mental health professionals.

Participants in this research study provided detailed descriptions of their experiences with

the sacred in response to an open-ended question. An analysis of these data could provide a more

nuanced understanding of people’s experiences of the sacred by examining the specific

information that contextualizes the emotions they endorsed in the scale. Analyzing the relative

lack of predictability of the Dread subscale lay beyond the scope of this study. Data could be

collected from a new participant sample to compare the pattern of responses on the Dread
 57
subscale to the responses on scales such as the Full RCOPE and the Spiritual Struggles scales

which gather information on the negative aspects of individuals’ religious lives.

The study’s participant sample was insufficiently diverse to properly assess the intriguing

possibility that the pattern of emotional responses to the experience of the sacred constitutes a

widely shared psychological phenomenon. Data need to be collected from additional participants

spanning a greater variety of cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. This data collection

should specifically include individuals with no religious affiliation. The current study’s findings

suggest that religiously unaffiliated individuals’ emotional experience of the sacred greatly

resembles that of people who ascribe to a set of religious or spiritual beliefs. Confirming such a

finding would have important implications for understanding the nature of secularization. Future

studies could investigate the possibility that even when individuals abandon their organized

religion and its associated public rituals, their underlying private emotional response to the

sacred remains unchanged.

Additional studies are needed to explore how the SES can be used to further study how

experiences of the sacred compare to other complex human experiences. Aesthetic experiences

involving works of art or scenes of natural beauty have often been described as being quite

similar to religious experiences (Jay, 2005). Cohen et al (2010) analyzed a set of cognitive

appraisals and emotion ratings derived from narratives provided by individuals who described

either a spiritual experience or an experience of profound beauty. The researchers, however,

failed to clearly differentiate the groups of participants. They included individuals in their

“spiritual” experience group who reported having had an experience of art or nature as long as

they considered their experience to have been spiritually transformative. Only 34% of the

participants in this group indicated that religion or the sacred constituted the origin or cause of
 58
their transformational experience. Moreover, the research paradigm also created a possible

confounding factor since participants in the spiritual condition were explicitly asked to describe a

“transformative” experience whereas participants in the other condition were asked to describe

an experience “that involves a profound sense of beauty”. Accordingly, it becomes unclear

whether the reported differences in emotional responses between the two groups (e.g.,37 % of

the differences in ratings achieved statistical significance at the p .05 level) were attributable to

different emotional responses to the spiritual or aesthetic experiences, or to the transformative

nature of the spiritual experience, or to a combination of both factors. Using the SES would

provide a theoretically based method for analyzing emotional responses to sacred and aesthetic

experiences. The ability to differentiate between religious and aesthetic experiences based on

patterns of emotional responses could lead to the development of a typology or a classification of

complex human experiences. This study does not advocate, nor does it present any evidence for

the existence of specific religious/spiritual emotions. People’s emotional vocabulary is made up

of a basic set of emotions. They experience a complex combination of these emotions in

response to encounters with the sacred. The SES is designed to measure this distinctive mixture

of emotions as well as their intensity.

Conclusion

The SES showed promise as an instrument to measure emotional responses to

experiences of the sacred. The two subscales which emerged from the factor analyses explained

66.2% of the variance in participant responses and demonstrated internal consistency.

Administering the SES would enable researchers to verify whether participants in an induction

experiment or a memory protocol study have actually had an experience of the sacred. It also

appears that using the scale in future research may provide an opportunity to further explore the
 59
linkage between emotions and actions. The SES should be useful to researchers looking for a

theoretically meaningful measure derived from an established psychological construct.

 60
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 72
Table 1

Summary of Sample Characteristics

(N = 230)

32.2
Mean Age (SD)
(10.9)
% Gender
Male 33.6
Female 66.4
% Race/Ethnicity
African-American or Black 7.8%
Latino or Hispanic 8.5%
Asian or Pacific Islander 5.1%
Middle Eastern 0.7%
Native American 3.1%
White or Caucasian 83.1%
Other (please specify) 1.4%
Education
Some High School 1.5%
High School Diploma 15.3%
Technical College or Trade
5.2%
School
College Level Course or
64.8%
Degree
Professional School 1.2%
Graduate Level Course or
11.9%
Degree
Income
Less than $25,000 30.9%
$25,000 to $49,999 30.3%
$50,000 to $74,999 21.4%
$75,000 to $100,000 11.0%
Greater than $100,000 6.4%
Marital Status
Single 33.0%
Living with a romantic partner 16.3%
Widowed 1.0%
Married 39.8%
Divorced 10.2%
Other 1.7%
 73
TABLE 2

Summary of religious characteristics of sample

(N = 230)

Not Religious or Spiritual 10.0%

Spiritual 7.8%
Religious 82.2%

Religious Preference
Christian - Total 70.4%
Catholic 11.7%
Orthodox 0.4%
Protestant 26.5%
Mormon 3.0%
Christian - Nondenominational 28.7%
Jewish 1.3%
Buddhist 2.2%
Moslem 0.4%
Hindu 0.4%
Other 7.4%
Spiritual 7.8%
Atheist/Agnostic 5.2%
None 4.8%
 74
Table 3

Factor loadings and communalities (N=230)

Item Number Item F1 F2 h2

1 Filled with awe 0.57 0.40
2 I felt small 0.39 0.16
3 I wanted to give my whole self over to my experience. 0.61 0.42
4 I felt humble. 0.42 0.18
5 I felt that I had been blessed. 0.57 0.40
I felt unworthy of being in the presence of something so
0.37 0.22
6 great.
7 I felt worried. -0.34 0.71 0.62
8 I was completely fascinated. 0.57 0.42
9 I had an uncomfortable feeling inside my body. -0.42 0.62 0.56
10 I felt insignificant. 0.51 0.26
I felt that I had been given the greatest gift that anyone
0.69 0.50
11 could receive.
12 My mind had been opened to new thoughts. 0.44 0.20
13 I couldn’t tear myself away. 0.53 0.29
14 I felt extremely calm and excited at the same time. 0.62 -0.44 0.59
15 I felt concerned that I would be found wanting or at fault. 0.40 0.16
16 I felt vulnerable. 0.68 0.46
17 I was experiencing something too wonderful for words. 0.73 -0.33 0.63
18 I felt weak. 0.71 0.50
19 I felt like a great mystery was being revealed. 0.42 0.19
20 I felt completely exposed. 0.56 0.33
21 I felt uncertain. -0.32 0.64 0.51
All of my attention and awareness was focused on my
0.40 0.16
22 experience.
23 I felt afraid. 0.72 0.69
24 I wanted to draw closer to my experience. 0.74 0.59
25 I was completely consumed by the moment. 0.47 0.23
26 I felt powerless. 0.70 0.53
27 I felt that my heart would burst with joy. 0.80 0.70
28 I felt like I could cease to exist. 0.44 0.21
29 I felt that I been released from a great burden. 0.56 0.32
30 I felt ashamed. 0.59 0.35
31 Every part of my self was fully alive and aware. 0.58 0.41
I felt I was experiencing a love greater than any love I
0.69 0.48
32 could imagine.
33 Bowing my head. 0.37 0.22
34 Being perfectly still and quiet. 0.01
35 Closing my eyes. 0.17
36 Burying my face in my hands. 0.62 0.40
37 Turning away. 0.54 0.32
 75
38 Asking for forgiveness. 0.49 0.29
39 Crying. 0.49 0.32
40 Falling to my knees. 0.37 0.48 0.37
41 Staring up at the sky. 0.34 0.12
42 Reaching out with my hands open upwards. 0.53 0.33
43 Opening up my arms as if to embrace someone. 0.61 0.42
44 Giving praise. 0.59 0.36
45 Giving thanks 0.57 0.33
46 Dancing. 0.54 0.30
47 Laughing 0.52 0.28
48 Singing out loud. 0.61 0.38

% of variance explained 40.28 25.92

 76
Table 4

Final factor items

Item Number Item

Sacred Exuberance
1 I was filled with awe
3 I wanted to give my whole self over to my experience.
4 I felt humble.
5 I felt that I had been blessed.
7 I was completely fascinated.
10 I felt that I had been given the greatest gift that anyone could receive.
11 My mind had been opened to new thoughts.
12 I couldn’t tear myself away.
13 I felt extremely calm and excited at the same time.
16 I was experiencing something too wonderful for words.
18 I felt like a great mystery was being revealed.
21 All of my attention and awareness was focused on my experience.
23 I wanted to draw closer to my experience.
24 I was completely consumed by the moment.
26 I felt that my heart would burst with joy.
28 I felt that I been released from a great burden.
30 Every part of my self was fully alive and aware.
31 I felt I was experiencing a love greater than any love I could imagine.
34 Staring up at the sky.
35 Reaching out with my hands open upwards.
36 Opening up my arms as if to embrace someone.
37 Giving praise.
38 Giving thanks
39 Dancing.
40 Laughing
41 Singing out loud.

Sacred Dread
2 I felt small
6 I felt worried.
8 I had an uncomfortable feeling inside my body.
9 I felt insignificant.
14 I felt concerned that I would be found wanting or at fault.
15 I felt vulnerable.
17 I felt weak.
19 I felt completely exposed.
20 I felt uncertain.
22 I felt afraid.
 77
25 I felt powerless.
27 I felt like I could cease to exist.
29 I felt ashamed.
32 Burying my face in my hands.
33 Turning away.
 78
Table 5

Descriptive Statistics

Standard Cronbach Observation

Items Mean
Deviation Alpha Range
SES - Overall Scale
41 150.73 28.92 n/a 1 to 6
Sacred Exuberance
26 116.02 25.92 0.93 1 to 6
Sacred Dread
15 34.71 17.02 0.9 1 to 6

Standard Observation
Individual Items Mean
Deviation Range
1 I was filled with awe 5.17 1.28 1 to 6
2 I felt small 3.18 1.97 1 to 6
3 I wanted to give my whole self over to my
1 to 6
experience. 4.80 1.57
4 I felt humble. 4.80 1.48 1 to 6
5 I felt that I had been blessed. 5.30 1.28 1 to 6
6 I felt worried. 2.31 1.89 1 to 6
7 I was completely fascinated. 4.78 1.42 1 to 6
8 I had an uncomfortable feeling inside my
1 to 6
body. 2.07 1.71
9 I felt insignificant. 2.13 1.65 1 to 6
10 I felt that I had been given the greatest gift
1 to 6
that anyone could receive. 4.74 1.55
11 My mind had been opened to new thoughts. 4.98 1.41 1 to 6
12 I couldn’t tear myself away. 4.49 1.65 1 to 6
13 I felt extremely calm and excited at the same
1 to 6
time. 4.79 1.58
14 I felt concerned that I would be found
1 to 6
wanting or at fault. 1.60 1.24
15 I felt vulnerable. 2.83 1.99 1 to 6
16 I was experiencing something too wonderful
1 to 6
for words. 4.68 1.61
17 I felt weak. 2.44 1.79 1 to 6
18 I felt like a great mystery was being revealed. 4.13 1.72 1 to 6
19 I felt completely exposed. 2.77 1.97 1 to 6
20 I felt uncertain. 2.25 1.75 1 to 6
21 All of my attention and awareness was
1 to 6
focused on my experience. 5.30 1.11
22 I felt afraid. 2.18 1.77 1 to 6
 79
23 I wanted to draw closer to my experience. 4.73 1.52 1 to 6
24 I was completely consumed by the moment. 5.37 1.06 1 to 6
25 I felt powerless. 2.78 2.00 1 to 6
26 I felt that my heart would burst with joy. 4.26 1.82 1 to 6
27 I felt like I could cease to exist. 2.13 1.75 1 to 6
28 I felt that I been released from a great burden. 4.38 1.88 1 to 6
29 I felt ashamed. 1.49 1.14 1 to 6
Every part of my self was fully alive and
1 to 6
30 aware. 4.79 1.50
31 I felt I was experiencing a love greater than any
1 to 6
love I could imagine. 4.87 1.57
32 Burying my face in my hands. 2.88 2.03 1 to 6
33 Turning away. 1.67 1.38 1 to 6
34 Staring up at the sky. 4.00 2.01 1 to 6
35 Reaching out with my hands open upwards. 3.52 2.05 1 to 6
36 Opening up my arms as if to embrace someone. 3.83 1.92 1 to 6
37 Giving praise. 4.57 1.81 1 to 6
38 Giving thanks 5.05 1.53 1 to 6
39 Dancing. 2.63 1.87 1 to 6
40 Laughing 3.02 2.01 1 to 6
41 Singing out loud. 3.02 2.07 1 to 6
 80

Table 6

Scale Correlations

SES Exuberance Dread

SES 1.00 0.82 <.0001 0.45 <.0001
Exuberance 0.82 <.0001 1.00 -0.15 0.02
Dread 0.45 <.0001 -0.15 0.02 1.00
Rational - Analytical -0.01 0.91 0.04 0.52 -0.08 0.23
Rational - Experiential 0.04 0.56 0.06 0.40 -0.02 0.77
Experiential Ability 0.13 0.05 0.16 0.02 -0.03 0.69
Experiential Engagement 0.14 0.04 0.20 0.00 -0.07 0.27
EXTRAVERSION 0.23 0.00 0.20 0.00 0.07 0.27
AGREEABLENESS 0.08 0.22 0.08 0.23 0.02 0.81
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 0.11 0.09 0.13 0.05 -0.01 0.92
NEUROTICISM -0.03 0.69 -0.08 0.21 0.08 0.21
OPENNESS 0.20 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.94
Satisfaction with Life 0.22 0.00 0.24 0.00 0.00 0.95
Intrinsic Orientation 0.25 0.00 0.28 <.0001 0.00 0.99
Extrinsic Orientation 0.26 <.0001 0.20 0.00 0.14 0.03
Extrinsic Personal 0.28 <.0001 0.23 0.00 0.12 0.06
Extrinsic Social 0.14 0.03 0.09 0.18 0.10 0.13
Quest Orientation 0.14 0.03 0.11 0.09 0.07 0.27
Existential - Quest 0.17 0.01 0.15 0.02 0.06 0.37
Doubt - Quest 0.13 0.05 0.09 0.18 0.08 0.22
Change - Quest 0.03 0.66 0.01 0.89 0.03 0.60
SWBE 0.01 0.88 0.02 0.72 -0.02 0.77
SWBR -0.22 0.00 -0.28 <.0001 0.05 0.48
 81
Table 7

Regression analyses

Dependent (SE P
Independent Variables B F ǻ52 R2
Variable B) Value

SES Intrinsic, Extrinsic,

Quest
SES Intrinsic 0.79 0.17 21.04 <.0001 0.08
Extrinsic 0.69 0.25 7.87 0.0055 0.03
Quest 0.33 0.13 6.01 0.015 0.02
Overall Model 14.06 <.0001 0.13

SES Extrinsic Personal, Extrinsic

Social
Extrinsic Personal 1.59 0.40 15.66 0.0001 0.06
Extrinsic Social 0.49 0.40 1.51 0.2204 0.01
Overall Model 10.94 <.0001 0.07

SES SWBE, SWBR

SWBE 1.07 0.63 2.86 0.0924 0.01
SWBR -2.43 0.58 17.37 <.0001 0.07
Overall Model 8.72 0.0002 0.08

Exuberance Intrinsic, Extrinsic, Quest

Intrinsic 0.28 0.07 17.95 <.0001 0.07
Extrinsic 0.01 0.09 0 0.9537 0.00
Quest 0.18 0.05 12.06 0.0006 0.05
Overall Model 8.48 <.0001 0.12

Exuberance . Extrinsic Personal,

Extrinsic Social
Extrinsic Personal 0.40 0.15 6.63 0.0107 0.03
Extrinsic Social -0.08 0.15 0.26 0.611 0.00
Overall Model 3.35 0.037 0.03

Exuberance SWBE, SWBR

SWBE 0.45 0.24 3.66 0.057 0.02
SWBR -0.88 0.22 16.51 <.0001 0.07
Overall Model 8.4 0.0003 0.08

SES Extraversion, SWL, EA

Extraversion 1.56 0.63 6.11 0.0142 0.02
SWL 0.89 0.29 9.1 0.0028 0.04
EA 0.21 0.32 0.41 0.5246 0.00
Overall Model 6.83 0.0002 0.06
 82
Dependent Independent P
B (SE B) F ǻ52 R2
Variable Variables Value

SES Extraversion, SWL, EE, Intrinsic,

Extrinsic, Existential, Doubt, Change, SWBR
Extraversion 1.58 0.59 7.13 0.01 0.03
SWL 0.38 0.29 1.70 0.19 0.01
EE 0.19 0.17 1.32 0.25 0.00
Intrinsic 0.56 0.19 8.79 0.00 0.03
Extrinsic 0.66 0.24 7.21 0.01 0.03
Existential 0.63 0.27 5.27 0.02 0.02
Doubt 0.63 0.44 2.03 0.16 0.01
Change -0.63 0.46 1.84 0.18 0.01
SWBR -0.55 0.60 0.82 0.37 0.00
Overall Model 7.19 <.0001 0.13

SES Extraversion, SWL, Intrinsic, EE, Quest,

SWBR
Extraversion 1.53 0.58 6.85 0.01 0.02
SWL 0.42 0.29 2.11 0.15 0.01
Intrinsic 0.59 0.19 9.63 0.00 0.03
Quest 0.28 0.13 4.67 0.03 0.02
SWBR -0.80 0.59 1.84 0.18 0.01
Overall Model 9.54 <.0001 0.09

Exuberance Extraversion, SWL,

EA
Extraversion 0.66 0.23 8.25 0.00 0.03
SWL 0.35 0.11 10.59 0.00 0.04
EA 0.23 0.12 3.87 0.05 0.01
Overall Model 10.87 <.0001 0.09

Exuberance Extraversion, SWL, EE, Intrinsic,

Extrinsic, Existential, Doubt, Change, SWBR
Extraversion 0.66 0.22 8.66 0.00 0.03
SWL 0.24 0.11 4.73 0.03 0.02
EE 0.13 0.06 4.26 0.04 0.02
Intrinsic 0.18 0.07 6.04 0.01 0.02
Extrinsic 0.00 0.09 0.00 1.00 0.00
Existential 0.26 0.10 6.61 0.01 0.02
Doubt 0.12 0.17 0.55 0.46 0.00
Change 0.01 0.17 0.00 0.96 0.00
SWBR -0.26 0.23 1.32 0.25 0.00
Overall Model 6.47 <.0001 0.12
 83

Independent P
Dependent Variable B (SE B) F ǻ52 R2
Variables Value

ExuberanceExtraversion, SWL, Intrinsic, EE,

Quest, SWBR
Extraversion 0.73 0.22 11.09 0.00 0.04
SWL 0.24 0.11 4.86 0.03 0.02
Intrinsic 0.17 0.07 5.68 0.02 0.02
Quest 0.14 0.05 8.04 0.01 0.03
SWBR -0.39 0.22 3.09 0.08 0.01
Overall Model 8.60 <.0001 0.12

Exuberance Big Five Personality Factors

Extraversion 0.61 0.27 5.25 0.02 0.02
Agreeableness -0.23 0.29 0.63 0.43 0.00
Openness 0.59 0.21 7.72 0.01 0.03
Neuroticism -0.68 0.26 7.03 0.01 0.03
Conscientiousness 0.37 0.26 2.12 0.15 0.01
Overall Model 7.05 <.0001 0.09
 84
APPENDIX A. MECHANICAL TURK SCREENING PAGE.

Welcome to the Life Experiences Study

Thank you for your interest in this study! This research study will be examining people’s
emotions about important life events. To determine whether you are eligible to participate in this
study, please answer the following question.

Please indicate which of the following types of life events you have experienced (select all that
apply):

Ƒ([SHULHQFHGWKHGHDWKRIDORYHGRQH

Ƒ%HFDPHDSDUHQW

Ƒ+DGDQHDU-death experience.

Ƒ([SHULHQFHGWKHSUHVHQFHRI*RGRURWKHUGLYLQHIRUFH

Ƒ Got married.

Ƒ+DGDQRXW-of-body experience.

Ƒ$FKLHYHGDPDMRUOLIHJRDO

Ƒ+DGDSURIRXQGVSLULWXDORUVDFUHGH[SHULHQFH

Ƒ&KDQJHGFDUHHUV

Ƒ0RYHGWRDIRUHLJQFRXQWU\
 85
APPENDIX B. SACRED EMOTIONS SCALE.

With your thoughts focused on your sacred moment please review the following statements
and indicate the degree to which you experienced these feelings. It is not unusual for people
to feel a mixture of feelings that seem to contradict each other. For example, a person may
experience both feelings of joy and sadness at the same time. If you similarly experienced a
mixture of opposing emotions during your encounter with the sacred, please include all of
them in your responses. Please indicate the degree to which you experienced the following
during your encounter with the sacred:
Sacred Awe
I felt like I could cease to exist.
I felt afraid.
I was filled with awe.
I felt uncertain.
I felt worried.
I felt powerless.
I felt vulnerable.
I had an uncomfortable feeling inside my chest or stomach.
I felt weak.
I felt humble.
I felt unworthy of being in the presence of something so great.
I felt small
I felt completely exposed.
I felt ashamed.
I felt insignificant.
I felt concerned that I would be found wanting or at fault.
Sacred Fascination
I was completely fascinated.
I wanted to draw closer to my experience.
Every part of my self was fully alive and aware.
I felt like a great mystery was being revealed.
I was experiencing something too wonderful for words.
I felt extremely calm and excited at the same time.
I was completely consumed by the moment.
All of my attention and awareness was focused on my experience.
I felt that my heart would burst with joy.
I couldn’t tear myself away.
My mind had been opened to new thoughts.
I felt I was experiencing a love greater than any love I could imagine.
I felt that I had been blessed.
I felt that I been released from a great burden.
I wanted to give my whole self over to my experience.
I felt that I had been given the greatest gift that anyone could receive.
 86
Sacred Emotions Scale (Con’t.)

The following is a list of descriptions of different actions. Read each description and imagine the
type of emotion you might be experiencing while performing that action. Now think about your
sacred experience. Though you may not have actually performed any of these actions during
your sacred experience, please indicate the degree to which the following actions reflect how you
felt during your sacred experience:

During my sacred experience I felt like…

Analogous Behaviours

Sacred Awe

Bowing my head.
Being perfectly still and quiet.
Closing my eyes.
Burying my face in my hands.
Turning away.
Asking for forgiveness.
Crying.
Falling to my knees.

Sacred Fascination

Staring up at the sky.

Reaching out with my hands open upwards.
Opening up my arms as if to embrace someone.
Giving praise.
Giving thanks
Dancing.
Laughing
Singing out loud.
 87
APPENDIX C. INSTRUCTRIONS FOR RECALLING A SACRED ENCOUNTER.

This research study is interested in learning about people’s individual personal experiences of the
sacred. The sacred for many people is the central focus of their religious or spiritual beliefs. The
sacred can mean many different things to different people. For some people the sacred may be
God, a divine being or beings, a holy life force, or some other higher power.

Please think back to a time when you personally experienced an encounter with the sacred. Try
to remember every detail of the moment to the best of your ability.

Please describe your personal encounter with the sacred in the space below. You may take as
long as you need and write as much as you would like, though it would be appreciated if you
would write at least a paragraph or two.

Please describe your sacred encounter here:

 88
APPENDIX D. ENCOUNTER DETAIL QUESTIONS, AFTER LEVINE ET AL. (2009).

Please answer the following questions about your sacred encounter. Please answer all of the
questions to the best of your ability. If you provided the information earlier, please enter it again.

When did your encounter with the sacred take place?

Year

Month/Season

Date/Time

Where did this encounter take place?

Describe the setting of the encounter (description of location).

Please describe any visual images or objects that you remember from your encounter.

Please describe any colors you remember.

Please describe any sounds you experienced.

Please describe any smells you remember.

Please describe any tastes you experienced.

Please describe any other physical sensations (e.g., textures, pain, temperature).

Describe anyone else who was with you during the encounter.

Describe any actions or movements you made.

How long did your encounter last?

How clearly can you 1 2 3 4 5 6

visualize this event?
Vague memory Extremely clear

No recollection as if it were happening now

Please describe any thoughts you experienced during your encounter.

 89
Please describe any emotions you experienced during your encounter.

How much did your emotional 1 2 3 4 5 6

state change from before the
encounter occurred to after it No change Underwent tremendous
happened? in how I felt emotional change

How personally important is

this event to you now? 1 2 3 4 5 6

No importance at all Of great

importance
How personally important was 1 2 3 4 5 6
this event to you then?
No importance at all Of great
importance

How often do you think or talk 1 2 3 4 5 6

about this encounter?
(see cue sheet)
 90
APPENDIX E. RATIONAL-EXPERIENTIAL INVENTORY.

Please use the following scale to answer these questions.

completely false completely true

1 2 3 4 5

1. _________ I have a logical mind.

2. _________ I prefer complex problems to simple problems.

3. _________ I believe in trusting my hunches.

4. _________ I am not a very analytical thinker.

5. _________ I trust my initial feelings about people.

6. _________ I try to avoid situations that require thinking in depth about something.

7. _________ I like to rely on my intuitive impressions.

8. _________ I don’t reason well under pressure.

9. _________ I don’t like situations in which I have to rely on intuition.

10. _________ Thinking hard and for a long time about something gives me little satisfaction.

11. _________ Intuition can be a very useful way to solve problems.

12. _________ I would not want to depend on anyone who described himself or herself as intuitive.

13. _________ I am much better at figuring things out logically than most people.

14. _________ I usually have clear, explainable reasons for my decisions.

15. _________ I don’t think it is a good idea to rely on one’s intuition for important decisions.

16. _________ Thinking is not my idea of an enjoyable activity.

17. _________ I have no problem thinking things through carefully.

18. _________ When it comes to trusting people, I can usually rely on my gut feelings.

19. _________ I can usually feel when a person is right or wrong, even if I can’t explain how I know.

20. _________ Learning new ways to think would be very appealing to me.

21. _________ I hardly ever go wrong when I listen to my deepest gut feelings to find an answer.

22. _________ I think it is foolish to make important decisions based on feelings.

23. _________ I tend to use my heart as a guide for my actions.

 91
24. _________ I often go by my instincts when deciding on a course of action.

25. _________ I’m not that good at figuring out complicated problems.

26. _________ I enjoy intellectual challenges.

27. _________ Reasoning things out carefully is not one of my strong points.

28. _________ I enjoy thinking in abstract terms.

29. _________ I generally don’t depend on my feelings to help me make decisions.

30. _________ Using logic usually works well for me in figuring out problems in my life.

31. _________ I think there are times when one should rely on one’s intuition.

32. _________ I don’t like to have to do a lot of thinking.

33. _________ Knowing the answer without having to understand the reasoning behind it is good enough for
me.

34. _________ Using my gut feelings usually works well for me in figuring out problems in my life.

35. _________ I don’t have a very good sense of intuition.

36. _________ If I were to rely on my gut feelings, I would often make mistakes.

37. _________ I suspect my hunches are inaccurate as often as they are accurate.

38. _________ My snap judgments are probably not as good as most people’s.

39. _________ I am not very good at solving problems that require careful logical analysis.

40. _________ I enjoy solving problems that require hard thinking.

 92
APPENDIX F. BIG FIVE INVENTORY (JOHN ET AL., 1991).

How I am in general
Here are a number of characteristics that may or may not apply to you. For example, do you agree that
you are someone who likes to spend time with others? Please write a number next to each statement to
indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with that statement.

1 2 3 4 5
Disagree Disagree Neither agree Agree Agree
Strongly a little nor disagree a little strongly

I am someone who…
1. _____ Is talkative 36. _____ Is outgoing, sociable
2. _____ Tends to find fault with others 37. _____ Is sometimes rude to others
3. _____ Does a thorough job 38. _____ Makes plans and follows through with them
4. _____ Is depressed, blue 39. _____ Gets nervous easily
5. _____ Is original, comes up with new ideas 40. _____ Likes to reflect, play with ideas
6. _____ Is reserved 41. _____ Has few artistic interests
7. _____ Is helpful and unselfish with others 42. _____ Likes to cooperate with others
8. _____ Can be somewhat careless 43. _____ Is easily distracted
9. _____ Is relaxed, handles stress well. 44. _____ Is sophisticated in art, music, or literature
10. _____ Is curious about many different things
11. _____ Is full of energy
12. _____ Starts quarrels with others
13. _____ Is a reliable worker
14. _____ Can be tense
15. _____ Is ingenious, a deep thinker
16. _____ Generates a lot of enthusiasm
17. _____ Has a forgiving nature
18. _____ Tends to be disorganized
19. _____ Worries a lot
20. _____ Has an active imagination
21. _____ Tends to be quiet
22. _____ Is generally trusting
23. _____ Tends to be lazy
24. _____ Is emotionally stable, not easily upset
25. _____ Is inventive
26. _____ Has an assertive personality
27. _____ Can be cold and aloof
28. _____ Perseveres until the task is finished
29. _____ Can be moody
30. _____ Values artistic, aesthetic experiences
31. _____ Is sometimes shy, inhibited
32. _____ Is considerate and kind to almost everyone
33. _____ Does things efficiently
34. _____ Remains calm in tense situations
35. _____ Prefers work that is routine
 93
APPENDIX G. THE SATISFACTION WITH LIFE SCALE (SWLS; DIENER ET AL., 1985).

Please indicate your level of agreement with each item from 1

(strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In most ways my life is close to ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

ideal.

The conditions of my life are ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

excellent.

I am satisfied with my life. ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

So far I have gotten the ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

important things I want in life.

If I could live my life over, I ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰ ‰

would change almost nothing.
 94
APPENDIX H. EXTRINSIC/INTRINSIC RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION SCALE

(GORSUCH & MCPHERSON, 1989).

1. I enjoy reading about my religion.

2. I go to church because it helps me to make friends.

3. It doesn’t much matter what I believe so long as I am good.

4. It is important to me to spend time in private thought and prayer.

5. I have often had a strong sense of God’s presence.

6. I pray mainly to gain relief and protection.

7. I try hard to live all my life according to my religious beliefs.

8. What religion offers me most is comfort in times of trouble and sorrow.

9. Prayer is for peace and happiness.

10. Although I am religious, I don’t let it affect my daily life.

11. I go to church mostly to spend time with my friends.

12. My whole approach to life is based on my religion.

13. I go to church mainly because I enjoy seeing people I know there.

14. Although I believe in my religion, many other things are more important in my life.
 95
APPENDIX I. QUEST ORIENTATION SCALE (BATSON & SCHOENRADE, 1991).
 96
APPENDIX J. HSRB APPROVAL LETTER.

DATE: August 30, 2012

TO: Donna Burdzy

FROM: Bowling Green State University Human Subjects Review Board

PROJECT TITLE: [361008-3] Sacred Emotions Scale

SUBMISSION TYPE: Revision

ACTION: APPROVED APPROVAL

DATE: August 30, 2012
EXPIRATION DATE: July 30, 2013
REVIEW TYPE: Expedited Review

REVIEW CATEGORY: Expedited review category # 7

Thank you for your submission of Revision materials for this project. The Bowling Green State University Human
Subjects Review Board has APPROVED your submission. This approval is based on an appropriate risk/benefit ratio
and a project design wherein the risks have been minimized. All research must be conducted in accordance with this
approved submission.

The final approved version of the consent document(s) is available as a published Board Document in the Review
Details page. You must use the approved version of the consent document when obtaining consent from participants.
Informed consent must continue throughout the project via a dialogue between the researcher and research participant.
Federal regulations require that each participant receives a copy of the consent document.

Please add the text equivalent of the HSRB IRBNet approval/expiration date stamp to the "footer" area of the electronic
consent document.

Please note that you are responsible to conduct the study as approved by the HSRB. If you seek to
make any changes in your project activities or procedures, those modifications must be approved by this committee
prior to initiation. Please use the modification request form for this procedure.

You have been approved to enroll 700 participants. If you wish to enroll additional participants you must seek approval
from the HSRB.

All UNANTICIPATED PROBLEMS involving risks to subjects or others and SERIOUS and UNEXPECTED adverse
events must be reported promptly to this office. All NON-COMPLIANCE issues or COMPLAINTS regarding this project
must also be reported promptly to this office.

This approval expires on July 30, 2013. You will receive a continuing review notice before your project expires. If you
wish to continue your work after the expiration date, your documentation for continuing review must be received with
sufficient time for review and continued approval before the expiration date.

Good luck with your work. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Research Compliance at 419-372-
7716 or hsrb@bgsu.edu. Please include your project title and reference number in all correspondence regarding this
project.
 97
This letter has been electronically signed in accordance with all applicable regulations, and a copy is retained within Bowling Green
State University Human Subjects Review Board's records.