The Religious Schema Scale: Construction and Initial Validation of a Quantitative Measure for Religious Styles

This article presents the Religious Schema Scale (RSS). Its conceptual background is the model of religious styles. After a conceptual discussion of the relation between religious styles and religious schemata, the steps of scale construction are reported. Based on 822 responses from research participants in the United States and Germany to a preliminary 78-item version, we used construct-oriented iterative and factor-analytic procedures for reducing the RSS to a 15-item version that consists of three 5-item subscales with acceptable reliabilities. Confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the RSS has a robust 3-factor structure, which is cross-culturally valid in both the United States and Germany. We report correlations of the RSS with the Big Five, Psychological Well-Being, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. We also present predictive characteristics of the RSS in regard to Fowler's stages of faith. Finally, we report results on the incremental validity of the RSS.     

Different Types of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being in Relation to Personality and Subjective Well-Being

In this study the authors attempt to present different types of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (RSWB) and discuss their relation to personality and psychological well-being. The Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being 48 is employed for this study, which consists of 6 subscales. To find different types of RSWB, an agglomerative cluster analysis on these subscales was performed based on the responses obtained in a nonclinical adult sample (n = 463). A 4-cluster solution was accepted. The clusters were labeled as Religious/Spiritual High, Religiously Oriented, Existentially Oriented, and Religious/Spiritual Low, and were found to be substantially related to Sense of Coherence (n = 263) and Six Factors of Personality (n = 200) in two different subsamples. By presenting a first empirical model for a 4-field typology of RSWB, we hope to further contribute to the ongoing discussion on how to deal with religious/spiritual issues in personality research.     

REPORTING A DREAM ACCOMPANYING AN ENACTMENT IN THE TRANSFERENCE SITUATION

Patients with pathological organisations of the personality present the analyst with considerable technical difficulties. One of these problems arises from the fact that, in such patients, dreams frequently are not being used for communication of unconscious meaning, but instead for purposes of manipulation of the transference situation. They then represent attempts to identify the analyst with a part of the patient's self or with a particular internal object in order to draw him/her into collusive enactments. Following the work of Bion and Segal the paper presents a two-dimensional model in order to clarify the structure and use of dreams in this situation. The model may serve as a background orientation for the analyst in the clinical situation, as is subsequently illustrated in a detailed clinical sequence with a borderline patient. To conclude, the author suggests that whenever tendencies towards acting in are predominant, the interpretation of the enactment should generally be given preference over the interpretation of the dream content. The possible advantages and disadvantages of both strategies of interpretation are discussed. Finally, the author highlights consequences that arise when dealing with countertransference.     

Freedom and Rationality as Predictors of Cross-National Happiness Patterns: The Role of Income as a Mediating Variable

Freedom and rationality have traditionally been viewed as essential ingredients to the 'pursuit of happiness'. Previous research has found that the way in which happiness is linked to freedom and other attributes of individualistic society is affected by the income level. This paper formulates a structural model of the linkage between political freedom, rationality, and happiness which takes explicit account of income as a mediating variable. Since income is hypothesized to be linked to the degree of freedom and rationality prevailing in a society, this approach permits to distinguish between direct and indirect linkages of happiness to freedom and rationality. Estimating the model with cross-national data yields the following key findings: (1) Happiness is positively related to freedom as well as to rationality at high freedom/rationality levels and negatively at low levels. (2) Whereas freedom affects happiness only indirectly (through its impact on income), rationality has both direct and indirect effects on happiness.     

The Proposition of a General Version of the Theory of Planned Behavior: Predicting Ecological Behavior1

The present paper explores whether the theory of planned behavior (TPB) must abandon the notion that perceived behavioral control (PBC) has a direct influence on behavior. In a cross‐sectional survey of 895 Swiss residents, our hypothesis was tested by means of structural equation models. Applied specifically, PBC turned out to be a significant direct predictor of one's performance. A general version of the TPB based on aggregated measures, however, revealed PBC's direct influence on behavior to be nonsignificant and, presumably, a non‐universally applicable and thus nongeneralizable part of the theory. Intention determined 51% to 52% of people's ecological behavior, which supports the claim of a strong attitude‐behavior relation. Attitude, subjective norms, and PBC, the 3 TPB components, account for 81% of intention's variance.     

Validity of Stimulus and Response Components in a Video Test of Social Competence

Various stimulus components (video, orally-presented questions) and response components (multiple-choice, written, orally-given replies) of situational judgement tests of occupational social competency were investigated as to their impact upon the validity for a behavior-oriented role playing criterion while keeping test content constant. The stimulus component video alone had no impact upon validity. The response components contributed to validity. Validity increased with improved fidelity of response components. Concerning stimulus-response-combinations, the validity of two video tests (r = 0.17 and r = 0.36) was not higher than the validity of similar oral questioning (r = 0.13 and r = 0.37) but was significantly lower than a situational interview (r = 0.59). Response fidelity proved to be a bottleneck regarding validity of video tests. As a result, it is recommended that, in order to maximize validity of video and multimedia efforts, the developers of video- and multimedia tests focus special attention on response fidelity.