Bifactor Models of Religious and Spiritual Struggles: Distinct from Religiousness and Distress

The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS) measures important psychological constructs in an underemphasized section of the overlap between religion and well-being. Are religious/spiritual struggles distinct from religiousness, distress, and each other? To test the RSS' internal discrimi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReligions (Basel, Switzerland ) Vol. 7; no. 6; p. 68
Main Authors Stauner, Nick, Exline, Julie, Grubbs, Joshua, Pargament, Kenneth, Bradley, David, Uzdavines, Alex
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2016
Subjects
Anxiety
bifactor
confirmatory factor analysis
depression
distress
latent
measurement
Mental depression
religion
Religion & psychology
Spirituality
struggle
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Summary:The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (RSS) measures important psychological constructs in an underemphasized section of the overlap between religion and well-being. Are religious/spiritual struggles distinct from religiousness, distress, and each other? To test the RSS' internal discriminant validity, we replicated the original six-factor measurement model across five large samples (N = 5705) and tested the fit of a restricted bifactor model, which supported the mutual viability of multidimensional and unidimensional scoring systems for the RSS. Additionally, we explored a bifactor model with correlated group factors that exhibited optimal fit statistics. This model maintained the correlations among the original factors while extracting a general factor from the RSS. This general factor's strong correlations with religious participation and belief salience suggested that this factor resembles religiousness itself. Estimating this general factor seemed to improve Demonic and Moral struggles' independence from religiousness, but did not change any factor's correlations with neuroticism, depression, anxiety, and stress. These distress factors correlated with most of the independent group factors corresponding to the original dimensions of the RSS, especially Ultimate Meaning and Divine struggles. These analyses demonstrate the discriminant validity of religious/spiritual struggles and the complexity of their relationships with religiousness and distress.
ISSN:2077-1444
2077-1444
DOI:10.3390/rel7060068