Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping – Pilot Version

Abstract

The Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping (ABC) is a specialized psychological instrument developed to systematically evaluate how individuals perceive and utilize religion and spirituality in managing life stress and demands. The scale exists in two primary iterations: the initial 16-item Pilot Version and the refined 20-item Final Version. The Pilot Version specifically focuses on the respondent’s personal, subjective experience, asking them to rate their agreement regarding the helpfulness of both organized religion and a relationship with a Higher Power as mechanisms for stress mitigation.

Detailed in the 2012 dissertation by Monique Shah Kulkarni, the ABC scale was designed to offer a robust, multi-dimensional measure of religious and spiritual coping strategies. It encompasses structural, communal, value-based, and personal/transcendent dimensions, aiming to capture the complex interaction between established religious belief systems and practical stress management strategies employed by the individual.

Keywords

Religious Coping, Spiritual Coping, Stress Management, Religion and Spirituality, Psychological Scale, Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping (ABC), Psychometric Instrument, Scale Development.

Authors

Monique Shah Kulkarni (formerly Shah, M. M.), Richard P. Douglas, Divya Maheshwari, Christopher J. McCarthy.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping (ABC) is to provide a systematic and nuanced measurement of how individuals perceive and employ religious and spiritual resources to manage and mitigate life stress. Unlike instruments focusing solely on religious attendance frequency, the ABC aims to capture the underlying cognitive beliefs and behavioral reliance on specific spiritual mechanisms, such as community support, adherence to spiritual values, and the comfort derived from a personal relationship with a deity.

Crucially, the scale distinguishes between general beliefs about the efficacy of religious practices (often assessed in the Final Version regarding “other people”) and the individual’s direct, reported reliance on these practices (assessed for “me” in both versions). This differentiation allows researchers to separate abstract perceptions of religious efficacy from tangible religious behaviors, thereby offering a more sophisticated understanding of personalized religious and spiritual coping strategies.

Construct

The ABC scale measures the psychological construct of Religious and Spiritual Coping. This construct is operationalized as a multidimensional process reflecting the various ways religious involvement interacts with stress management. The instrument seeks to assess the utility of spiritual resources across several distinct dimensions:

• Coping through Organized Religion: Measures reliance on external structures, including routine, social networks, community support, codified values, and institutional guidance.
• Coping through Personal Spirituality: Focuses on the internal, transcendent relationship, such as connection with a Higher Power, the experience of unconditional acceptance, and spiritual comfort.
• Existential Coping: Addresses the role of religion in providing meaning, a coherent worldview, explanations for life events, and a resultant sense of control during stressful periods.

The 16-item Pilot Version specifically targets the individual’s subjective experience, utilizing statements prefaced with phrases like “In my experience…” to assess how organized religion and personal transcendent relationships directly aid in stress reduction.

Validity

The scale’s validation process is documented extensively in the dissertation, “Initial Development and Validation of the Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping (ABC).” This development involved rigorous psychological assessment intended to establish the scale’s empirical soundness.

Validity establishment included assessing content validity (ensuring items covered the full scope of the construct), construct validity (utilizing factor analysis to confirm the hypothesized internal dimensional structure), and concurrent validity (examining correlations between ABC scores and established measures of stress, well-being, and other general coping styles). This comprehensive approach ensures that the ABC scale possesses strong theoretical grounding and accurately reflects the various facets of religious and spiritual coping it intends to measure.

Reliability

Reliability testing was a crucial component of the initial scale development, adhering to standard practices in psychometrics. The primary focus was on establishing internal consistency, typically measured using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. This statistic ensures that the items intended to measure a single underlying dimension consistently relate to one another across different respondents.

The iterative refinement process, moving from the Pilot Version to the Final Version, reflects the authors’ commitment to optimizing the scale’s stability and consistency. Achieving high internal consistency is essential for researchers seeking to interpret scores related to specific religious and spiritual coping mechanisms with confidence.

Factor Analysis

Factor analytic techniques were employed during the psychometric development (documented in the 2012 dissertation) to confirm and refine the latent dimensional structure of religious and spiritual coping. These analyses, likely including both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), were critical steps in moving from the initial 16-item Pilot Version to the comprehensive 20-item Final Version.

The primary goal of the factor analysis was to isolate distinct, meaningful subscales—such as Community Support, Transcendental Relationship, and Worldview/Meaning—thereby providing empirical support for the multidimensional conceptualization of the construct underlying the ABC instrument.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychological Assessment Scale (Self-report questionnaire)

Format: Likert-type rating scale. The Pilot Version uses a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).

Language Available: English (Original development language).

Population Group: General population.

Age Group: Adults (Typically 18+).

Population Details: The initial validation study was conducted at The University of Texas at Austin, utilizing samples reflective of a large U.S. university setting, including students and local community members.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate their agreement with statements concerning their personal experiences with religion and spirituality in the context of stress coping.

Keywords

Religious Beliefs, Spiritual Practices, Stress Reduction, Organized Religion, Personal Spirituality, Psychometrics, Scale Development, Dissertation, Higher Power.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in the provided source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in the provided source.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence should generally be directed to the primary author, Monique Shah Kulkarni, through the Department of Educational Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin (as of 2012).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The primary validation and final instrument year for the ABC scale is 2012, stemming from the dissertation research. The Pilot Version was utilized in earlier research leading up to a 2008 poster presentation.

The instrument originated from an academic dissertation and is generally available for non-commercial research use. Formal permission for substantial use should be sought from the primary author, Monique Shah Kulkarni. No specific fee information is provided in the source material.

The original PDF of the dissertation, which contains the instrument details and validation data, can be downloaded here: http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2012-08-6020.

Reference’s

• Shah‚ M. M.‚ Douglas‚ R. P.‚ Maheshwari‚ D.‚ & McCarthy‚ C. J. (2008‚ August 17). Assessing the role of religion and spirituality in coping with life demands. Poster presented at Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association‚ Boston‚ MA.

• Kulkarni‚ Monique Shah. (2012). Initial Development and Validation of the Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping (ABC). Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The University of Texas at Austin August 2012. (Available online: http://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2012-08-6020)

Items of the Assessment of Beliefs and Behaviors in Coping – Pilot Version

The following items ask about your experiences with religion and spirituality in coping with stress. Please rate the degree to which you agree/disagree with each one based on your personal belief system.

Rating Scale: 1 = strongly disagree‚ 2 = disagree‚ 3 = neutral‚ 4 = agree‚ 5 = strongly agree

1. In my experience‚ organized religion provides structure to my life that helps mecope with stress.
2. In my experience‚ the practices (e.g.‚ prayer‚ attending ceremonies) associated with organized religion helps me cope with life.
3. In my experience‚ the daily routine established by organized religion helps in coping with stress.
4. In my experience‚ rituals associated with organized religion help me cope with stress.
5. In my experience‚ the obligations associated with organized religion help in coping with stress.
6. In my experience‚ the support network offered by organized religion helps in coping with stress.
7. In my experience‚ the sense of community provided by organized religion helps in coping with stress.
8. In my experience‚ being around others with similar beliefs helps in coping with stress.
9. In my experience‚ ha‎ving a religious community to belong to helps in coping with stress.
10. In my experience‚ the system of values taught by organized religion helps make life less stressful.
11. In my experience‚ the guidance offered by organized religion helps me cope with the demands of life.
12. In my experience‚ ha‎ving religious teachings helps reduce stress in my life.
13. In my experience‚ my personal relationship with a higher power helps reduce stress in my life.
14. In my experience‚ knowing that I have a personal relationship with a higher power helps me cope with stress.
15. In my experience‚ my relationship with a higher power is a source of comfort that reduces stress in my life.
16. In my experience‚ the unconditional acceptance offered by my relationship with a higher power helps me cope with stress.