RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

Abstract

The Religious Experience Questionnaire (REQ) is a specialized psychometric instrument designed by K. J. Edwards to measure personal religious experience. This construct focuses specifically on the experienced reality of an affective relationship with a personal, caring God, differentiating itself sharply from the cognitive dimension of belief or religious orthodoxy. The scale was developed to overcome the limitations of traditional measures, which often suffered from ceiling effects in religiously committed populations due to their emphasis on cognitive rather than experiential aspects.

The original REQ (Edwards, 1976) contained eight items, but was later revised and expanded to a 12-item format utilizing a 7-point Likert scale, ensuring standardized anchors and including four reverse-scored items. This revised structure maintains an emphasis on subjective, individual experience, covering feelings of closeness, being cared for, and awareness of God’s influence in daily life.

Keywords

Religious Experience Questionnaire, REQ, Religious experience, Affective relationship with God, Subjective religion, Psychometrics, Spiritual assessment, God image, Self-esteem, Likert scale, Psychological studies of religion.

Authors

Keith J. Edwards, B. F. Brokaw, M. King (conceptual foundation).

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the Religious Experience Questionnaire (REQ) is to provide a precise measure of the individual’s subjective and experiential relationship with God, focusing on the affective dimension rather than adherence to doctrine or cognitive belief systems. It was specifically developed to address the methodological shortcoming of traditional measures of religious orthodoxy, which frequently produced ceiling effects when administered to highly religious or committed populations.

The scale aims to quantify the degree to which an individual experiences a personal, caring connection with God, thereby allowing for greater variance and utility in research involving samples where religious commitment is already high (e.g., college students attending religious institutions or clinical samples within a faith-based setting).

Construct

The core construct measured by the REQ is Personal Religious Experience, defined as the experienced reality of an affective relationship with a personal, caring God. This experiential dimension is distinct from mere cognitive belief in a religious system.

Key components of this construct include:

• A sense of being heard, cared for, and forgiven by God.
• An awareness of God’s immediate presence.
• Feelings of close fellowship and being saved.

The measure is designed exclusively to assess individual, subjective experience, steering clear of measuring group norms, values, or theological knowledge.

Validity

The Construct validity of the REQ, specifically measuring an affective experience of God as close and loving, is supported by various correlational studies. Significant positive correlations have been found between REQ scores and loving, benevolent God images (Brokaw & Edwards, 1994), an intrinsic-committed religious orientation, and peer ratings assessing the individual’s relationship with God (Wessel, 1979).

Furthermore, the scale’s validity is supported by its significant positive associations with numerous inter- and intrapersonal affective and experiential dimensions. Intrapersonal variables include positive self-concept (Day, 1980; Wessel, 1979), self-esteem (Edwards, 1977; Edwards, Goldberg, Hargrove, & Linamen, 1979), and self-adequacy (Tisdale et al., 1997). Interpersonal variables include empathy (Edwards, 1977; Edwards et al., 1979; Wessel, 1979), an affiliative interpersonal style (Volker, 1981), social interest, psychosocial maturity (Wessel, 1979), and level of object relations development (Brokaw & Edwards, 1994; Tisdale et al., 1997). The consistency of these correlations across diverse psychological domains reinforces the experiential nature of the construct.

Reliability

Specific internal consistency or test-retest reliability data for the Religious Experience Questionnaire (REQ) are not explicitly reported in the available source research. While a lack of specific reliability statistics is noted, the strong support for the scale’s homogeneity provided by factor analysis indirectly suggests acceptable psychometric properties for research use within religious populations.

Factor Analysis

A factor analysis was conducted by Brokaw (1991) on the 12 original REQ items, alongside 16 experimental items. The study utilized a sample of 92 undergraduate students drawn from a religiously homogeneous population. The results of this analysis strongly supported the homogeneity of the construct, indicating that the original 12 items load onto a single factor. Factor loadings for these items ranged from .46 to .83, confirming that the measure assesses a unitary dimension of personal religious experience.

Instrument

Test Type:

Self-report questionnaire.

Format:

Paper-and-pencil measure consisting of 12 items. Responses are scored on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from “never” to “always.” Items 3, 5, 7, and 12 are reverse scored. The total score is the sum of responses, ranging from 12 to 84, or alternatively, the mean response can be calculated.

Language Available:

English (implied).

Population Group:

Religiously committed individuals, including college students, general adults, and inpatient clinical samples.

Age Group:

Adults and young adults (college age) are represented in research samples.

Population Details:

The REQ was specifically designed for use with religiously committed populations where traditional measures often encounter ceiling effects. While normative data are not reported, research suggests the scale’s range is wide enough for differentiation within these samples.

Test Methodology:

Administration requires brief instructions emphasizing that test takers must respond based on their personal, subjective experience. No specialized examiner skill is required for administration or basic interpretation.

Keywords

Affective spirituality, Personal relationship with God, King’s factors, Construct validity, Self-concept, Empathy, Interpersonal style, Object relations development, Psychometric properties.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses:

Not provided in source material.

Correspondence Address:

Keith J. Edwards, Ph.D. Rosemead School of Psychology Biola University 13800 Biola Ave. La Mirada, CA 90639; (562) 903-4867

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year:

Original version published in 1976. Revised 12-item version developed circa 1997.

Permissions and Fee:

Information on the development of the current version has not been formally published. Further information and permissions regarding the scale must be obtained by contacting the author, Keith J. Edwards, directly.

Reference’s

• Brokaw, B. F. (1991). The relationship of God image to level of object relations development. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, CA.
• Brokaw, B. F., & Edwards, K. J. (1994). The relationship of God image to level of object relations development. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 22(4), 352-371.
• Day, N. D. (1980). Religious orientation, God concept, religious experience, social interest, and self-concept. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, CA.
• Edwards, K. J. (1976). Sex-role behavior and religious experience. In W. J. Donaldson Jr. (Ed.), Research in mental health and religious behavior: An introduction to research in the integration of Christianity and the behavioral sciences (pp. 224-238). Atlanta: Psychological Studies Institute. (Original version)
• Edwards, K. J. (1977). Religious experience as a function of self-concept and interpersonal behavior. Unpublished manuscript, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, CA.
• Edwards, K. J., Goldberg, G., Hargrove, J., & Linamen, C. (1979). Religious experience as a function of self-concept and interpersonal behavior. Unpublished manuscript, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, La Mirada, CA.
• King, M. (1967). Measuring the religion variable: Nine proposed dimensions. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 6, 173-190.
• Tisdale, T. C., Key, T. L., Edwards, K. J., Brokaw, B. F., Kemperman, S. R., Cloud, H., Townsend, J., & Okamoto, T. (1997). Impact of treatment on God image and personal adjustment, and correlations of God image to personal adjustment and object relations development. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 25(2), 227-239.
• Volker, G. C. (1981). God concept as a function of interpersonal style (Doctoral dissertation, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 1981). Dissertation Abstracts International, 42, 1157B.
• Wessel, S. J. (1979). The relationship of psychosocial maturity to intrapersonal, interpersonal and spiritual functioning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Biola University, La Mirada, CA.

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Items of the RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Below are listed a number of descriptive statements concerning religious experience. We would like you to use these statements to describe YOUR religious experience as accurately as possible. That is, we would like you to indicate, on a scale from 1 to 7, how true of YOUR religious experience these various statements are. Please respond to each item using the following scale:

1. I experience an awareness of God’s love.
2. I pray privately in places other than church.
3. I experience feelings of anger or resentment toward God.
4. I ask God to forgive my sins.
5. I am afraid that God is going to punish me in some way.
6. When I have decisions to make in my everyday life, I try to find out what God wants me to do.
7. I experience the feeling that God is so big and important He doesn’t have time for my personal problems.
8. I feel very close to God in prayer, during public worship, or at important moments in my life.
9. I experience awareness of God’s influence in my daily life.
10. When I pray to God, I feel like I’m having a conversation with a close friend.
11. My relationship to God is characterized by close fellowship.
12. I find myself doubting that God really exists.