Assessing Spirituality in a Diverse World

AMY L. AI, Ph.D., earned her Ph.D., M.S., M.A., and MSW at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her academic career has focused on interdisciplinary research and has published extensively on outcome research linking behavioral health, traumatic experiences, existential crises, cultural diversity, spirituality, and religiousness. She is Professor at Florida State University, affiliated with several institutes, departments, and colleges. Ai is the Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Sciences, and the Gerontological Society of America, a Fulbright scholar, and a grant reviewer for grant funders in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Hong Kong, China. PAUL WINK, Ph.D., received his M.A. in clinical psychology from the University of Melbourne and his Ph.D. in personality psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the Nellie Zuckerman Cohen and Anne Cohen Heller Professor of Health Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Wellesley College. Wink has published extensively in the areas of religiousness and spirituality, adult development, generativity, narcissism, and wisdom and is the co-author of In the course of a lifetime: Tracing religious belief, practice, and change (2007, University of California Press) and The Crown of Life: Dynamics of the Early Post-Retirement Period (2007, Springer Publishing Co.), Prima Donna: The psychology of Maria Callas (in press, Oxford University Press).Raymond F. Paloutzian, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Experimental and Social Psychology, edited The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion for 18 years. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, and wrote at Westmont College, Stanford University, and University of Leuven. Paloutzian authored Invitation to the Psychology of Religion, 3rd ed. (2017, Guilford), co-edited Forgiveness and Reconciliation (2010, Springer), Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2nd ed. (2013, Guilford), and Processes of Believing: The Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change in Creditions (2017, Springer). He has given invited talks on “The Psychology of Religion in Global Perspective” in various countries around the world.KEVIN A. HARRIS, Ph.D., LP, received a Ph.D. from Ball State University in Indiana. He is a licensed psychologist in Texas, an assessment specialist in health psychology at Algos Behavioral Health in San Antonio, and a former assistant professor of psychology at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and Our Lady of the Lake University. His research focuses on the psychology of religion and spirituality, assessment, music psychology, sexual assault prevention, and an integrative model of Lake University.

• Chapter 1. Mainstreaming the Assessment of Diverse Religions and Spirituality in Psychology (Scott Richards).- Chapter 2. The Connection of Soul Scale and Prediction for Psychological Wellbeing (Amy L. Ai).- Chapter 3. Spiritual Struggle (SS): A Bifactor Model, Plus Measurement Invariance Tests for Nonbelievers (Nick Stauner).- Chapter 4. The Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSRFQ) (Thomas G. Plante).- Chapter 5. Assessing the Sense of Reverence (SOR) in Contexts: A Positive Emotion Related to Psychological Functioning (Amy L. Ai).- Chapter 6. The Spiritual Modeling Self-Efficacy, Stand-Alone (SMSE-SA) scale (Doug Oman).- Chapter 7. The Spiritual and Religious Antagonism Scale (SARAS): Examining Biases to Religious and Spiritual Beliefs in Comparing Clinicians and College Students (Dominick A. Scalise).- Chapter 8. The Measurement of Diverse Adolescent Spirituality (MDAS) Among Mexican Youth (Pamela E. King).- Chapter 9. Multidimensional Self-Report Measuresof Spirituality: Compare and Contrast of the Spiritual Orientation Inventory (SOI) and the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI) (Aryeh Lazar).- Chapter 10. Assessing Religions and Spirituality in a Diversified World: Towards an Integrative Paradigm (Christine Agaibi, M.A.).

“No prior books that I am aware of so comprehensively survey religious assessment outside the mainstream of Western religious traditions and of religious expression. … All by itself, this makes the book indispensable to researchers and practitioners. … Dr. Ai and her co-editors and all the contributors are to be congratulated for a generational contribution, one that deserves to be the first (if not last) word on this subject for years to come.” (Jeff Levin, Journal of Religion and Health, June 3, 2021)