Psychological Analysis of Religious Experience: The Construction of the Intensity of Religious Experience Scale (IRES).
J Relig Health September 9, 2020 Stanisław Głaz 21 citations
A new psychometric tool, the Intensity of Religious Experience Scale (IRES), measures subjective feelings of God's presence and absence among Catholics. Developed across three studies, the scale showed reliable and valid two-factor structure: experiencing God's presence and experiencing God's absence, both influencing aspects of life. The first study generated items from Catholic religious experience concepts. The second study, with 217 participants, used exploratory factor analysis and established three-week test-retest reliability. The third study, with 368 participants, confirmed the two-factor structure through confirmatory factor analysis and concurrent validation. The findings indicate that religious experience has a distinct structure that can be reliably measured.