Chapter 11. Measurement Issues in God Image Research and Practice

God image narrative therapy: A mixed-methods investigation of a controlled group-based spiritual intervention.

“…We agree with scholars who have recommended the more frequent use of qualitative and mixed methods to study God images and God attachment (Davis et al, 2016;Gibson, 2007;Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2013;Hall & Fujikawa, 2013). We also agree that religious cognition researchers need to rely increasingly on non-self-report methods (e.g., projective measures, narrative methods) for assessing God images and God attachment.…”

Recruiting and pursuing Big Questions in the scientific study of religion

“…But despite these recommendations, and indeed despite the well-rehearsed problems in using self-report methods to study religion (Finke & Bader, in press;Gibson, 2007;Gorsuch, 1984;Hill, 2013;Jong, 2013), the data in Table 1 home of the majority was either in a psychology department (19) or a religious studies department (6); only 4 were based in interdisciplinary institutes and only 1 in a sociology department. Even multidisciplinary work-let alone interdisciplinary work-will remain a challenge if we are not hearing from scholars in all of the relevant disciplines!…”

How the Non-Religious View the Personality of God in Relation to Themselves

“…Their research, which used a brief measure of the Big Five personality traits (BFI-10) [72], showed personality traits were more discernible in God and Jesus than in the Holy Spirit and echoed previous research showing that God and Jesus were perceived as high on Agreeableness and Emotional Stability with the addition of Conscientiousness. Also, since self-report measures, regardless of how reliable they are, have some inherent flaws, limitations and biases [29], the study also measured salience of certain traits. Positive terms were more salient in the perception of Jesus and God than the Holy Spirit, while Holy Spirit proved to be understood more by supernatural terms with human-like attributes being more salient for Jesus.…”

“…Not surprisingly, there also seems to exist a difference in the perception of God and other religious figures between believers and atheists. And although it might seem that assessing the representation of God might not be applicable for atheists, research indicates that they are capable of holding a specific cognitive schema or identify a set of traits of God and other religious figures and that these concepts can be both salient and coherent [28], [29]. In some way it could be understood like holding a belief about the traits of any fictional character that you don't necessarily believe exists, such as characters from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or the characters from Game of Thrones.…”