Description

The “Attributions of Responsibility to God Scale” (ARSG) is an assessment tool developed to measure how individuals attribute responsibility to God for various events and situations in their lives. This scale examines perceptions and beliefs about God’s role in both positive and negative circumstances, such as successes, failures, illness, and other personal experiences.

Objective

The main goals of the tool are:
Assessment of Beliefs: To capture individuals’ beliefs regarding the responsibility they attribute to God for different events in their lives.
Understanding Religious Experience: To assist in understanding religious experiences and perceptions of God’s intervention in human affairs.
Analysis of Correlations: To explore how attributions of responsibility to God relate to other psychological variables such as religiosity, mental health, and coping strategies.

Analysis

The analysis of data collected through the ARSG scale includes:
Data Collection: Participants complete the ARSG questionnaire, which contains questions evaluating the attribution of responsibility to God for various situations.
Quantitative Assessment: Responses are scored using a Likert scale and analyzed using statistical methods such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and correlation analysis.
Interpretation of Results: The results are interpreted to understand dominant trends and relationships between attributions of responsibility to God and other psychological and religious factors.
Group Comparisons: Differences in attributions of responsibility are examined between different demographic and religious groups.

Scoring

The scoring of the ARSG scale includes:
Ensuring Reliability: Using reliability indicators such as Cronbach’s alpha to assess the internal consistency of responses.
Ensuring Validity: Using methods to confirm validity, such as confirmatory factor analysis, to ensure the scale measures attributions of responsibility to God as intended.
Repetition Testing: Conducting repeat tests with different groups of participants to ensure the reliability and validity of results in various contexts.

References

Pargament, K. I. (1997). “The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice.” New York: Guilford Press.
Exline, J. J., Park, C. L., Smyth, J. M., & Carey, M. P. (2011). “Anger toward God: Social-Cognitive Predictors, Prevalence, and Links with Adjustment to Bereavement and Cancer.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(1), 129-148.
Schaefer, S. M., & Gorsuch, R. L. (1991). “Situational and Personal Variations in Religious Coping.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 30(4), 504-513.
Spilka, B., Shaver, P., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1985). “A General Attribution Theory for the Psychology of Religion.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 24(1), 1-20.
Froese, P., & Bader, C. (2010). “America’s Four Gods: What We Say about God – and What That Says about Us.” Oxford University Press.