Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI)

Abstract

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) is a multidimensional, self-report psychological scale developed by Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards. It is designed to measure the quality and style of an individual’s personal relationship with God or a higher power, moving beyond simple metrics of religious practice or belief. Rooted in object relations and attachment theory applied to the divine, the SAI conceptualizes spiritual development as encompassing both adaptive (mature) and maladaptive (immature or conflicted) relational orientations. The scale is structured around key subscales that explore dimensions such as the sense of God’s presence, relational instability, and grandiosity in the spiritual domain.

Keywords

Spiritual Assessment Inventory, SAI, spiritual development, theistic psychology, relational spirituality, Instability, Grandiosity, Realistic Acceptance, psychological scale, religious assessment

Authors

Todd W. Hall, Keith J. Edwards

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) is to provide a theoretically grounded, psychometrically sound instrument for assessing the complexity of an individual’s spiritual life, particularly focusing on the dynamic, relational aspects of their connection with the divine. Unlike many earlier measures that focused solely on religious behaviors or well-being, the SAI seeks to diagnose potential areas of conflict, immaturity, or maladaptive patterns within the spiritual relationship, which are often overlooked in standard religious measures.

The scale is instrumental for researchers and clinicians interested in understanding how specific spiritual orientations (e.g., feelings of disappointment or grandiosity toward God) relate to overall psychological health, coping mechanisms, and personal adjustment. It was developed to specifically align with a theistic model of spiritual maturity.

Construct

The SAI measures spiritual development based on a theistic framework, drawing heavily from psychological theories of attachment and object relations. The core premise is that a person’s relationship with God mirrors, in many ways, their critical early relationships and relational patterns. The scale is structured into several core dimensions that represent adaptive and maladaptive relational styles:

• Awareness (A): Measures the individual’s subjective sense of God’s realness, presence, communication, and involvement in daily life. This is considered a fundamental aspect of mature spiritual experience.
• Realistic Acceptance (RA): Reflects the capacity to acknowledge relational conflict, disappointment, or frustration with God while maintaining the commitment and desire to continue the relationship. (This was formerly termed Healthy Ambivalence).
• Disappointment (D): Measures feelings of frustration, anger, or betrayal directed toward God, often resulting from unmet expectations or adverse life events. (This was formerly termed Defensiveness).
• Instability (I): Measures volatility, fear of rejection, and inconsistency in the relationship with God. This dimension often reflects insecure attachment patterns. (This was formerly termed Splitting).
• Grandiosity (G): Measures narcissistic spiritual tendencies, such as believing one is uniquely favored, more spiritual than others, or capable of manipulating God. (This was formerly termed Narcissism).
• Impression Management (IM): An experimental subscale designed to detect socially desirable responding regarding spiritual practices or attitudes.

Validity

The construct validity of the SAI was established through initial exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses during its development (1996, 2002), which supported the hypothesized factor structure corresponding to the five core dimensions (Awareness, Realistic Acceptance, Disappointment, Instability, and Grandiosity). Further validation work, including a study utilizing Item Response Theory (IRT) in 2007, confirmed that the items effectively measure the underlying latent traits of spiritual development and conflict.

The SAI demonstrates criterion-related validity by correlating its subscales with relevant psychological measures. Specifically, the adaptive scales (Awareness and Realistic Acceptance) typically show positive correlations with mental health indicators and mature coping strategies, while the maladaptive scales (Instability, Disappointment, Grandiosity) correlate positively with psychological distress, insecurity, and narcissistic traits.

Reliability

The SAI exhibits generally high internal consistency across its primary subscales, indicating that the items within each factor reliably measure the same underlying construct. The reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) reported in the source material demonstrate strong internal consistency for most dimensions, particularly Awareness and Disappointment.

Reported internal consistency values (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients) include:

• Awareness (A): Reported coefficients range from 0.90 to 0.95.
• Disappointment (D): Reported coefficients range from 0.90 to 0.91.
• Instability (I): Reported coefficients range from 0.84 to 0.88.
• Realistic Acceptance (RA): Reported coefficients range from 0.76 to 0.83.
• Grandiosity (G): This scale showed the lowest reliability, with coefficients ranging from 0.52 to 0.73, suggesting that this factor may require further refinement or is less stable across different samples.

Factor Analysis

The initial development of the SAI involved factor analysis which supported a multi-factor model of spiritual development. The 1996 study established the initial factors, which were refined in the 2002 publication into the five primary scales: Awareness, Realistic Acceptance, Disappointment, Instability, and Grandiosity. These factors successfully distinguish between two overarching categories of spiritual orientation: relational maturity (Awareness and Realistic Acceptance) and relational immaturity/conflict (Disappointment, Instability, and Grandiosity).

Subsequent psychometric analyses, including the 2007 Item Response Theory analysis, further confirmed the robust structure of the major factors, providing evidence that the scale items function appropriately across the continuum of spiritual experience. The scale also includes the experimental Impression Management scale, which is sometimes treated as a separate factor in exploratory analysis.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological assessment tool

Format: Multi-item questionnaire, typically consisting of 47 items (in the revised version), rated on a 5-point Likert scale.

Language Available: English (Primary Development)

Population Group: Individuals who hold a theistic worldview or engage in a personal, relational spirituality (e.g., Christians, monotheists).

Age Group: Adult (typically college-age and older)

Population Details: Developed primarily using Christian student and adult samples, reflecting the scale’s focus on a personal relationship with God.

Test Methodology: The respondent indicates the degree to which each statement is true for them using a 5-point scale, typically ranging from 1= Not At All True to 5=Very True. Scoring involves summing or averaging items specific to each subscale (A, RA, D, I, G, IM).

Keywords

spiritual maturity, psychological assessment, religious conflict, object relations, attachment to God, psychometrics, Todd W. Hall, Keith J. Edwards

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected], [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source content

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The initial version of the scale was developed in 1996, with a refined version (SAI-2) published and validated in 2002 and further analyzed in 2007. The scale is generally available for academic and research use, subject to standard citation requirements. Researchers should contact the authors for information regarding formal permissions or commercial use licensing. The original PDF of the scale instrument can be downloaded here: http://wellnesscenter.pbworks.com/f/Spiritual%20Assessment%20Inventory.pdf.

Reference’s

Hall, T.W. & Edwards, K.J. (1996). The initial development and factor analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 24, 233-249.

Hall, T.W. & Edwards, K.J. (2002). The Spiritual Assessment Inventory: A Theistic Model and Measure for Assessing Spiritual Development. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41(2); 341–357.

Hall, Todd W., Reiseb, Steven P & Havilandc, Mark G. (2007). An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. 17(2); 157-178.

Childs, Chivonna Y. (2014). EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE SPIRITUAL WELLNESS INVENTORY. doctoral dissertation. Cleveland State University. The dissertation can be accessed here: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=csu1409218531&disposition=inline.

Items of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI)

Rating Scale: 1= Not At All True, 2=Slightly True, 3=Moderately True, 4=Substantially True, 5=Very True

Subscale Item Mapping:

• A= Awareness (Items: 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 40, 42, and 44)
• RA= Realistic Acceptance (formerly= Healthy Ambivalence) (Items: 2.2, 8.2, 12.2, 18.2, 27.2, 33.2, and 47.2)
• D= Disappointment (formerly= Defensiveness) (Items: 2.1, 8.1, 12.1, 18.1, 27.1, 33.1, and 47.1)
• G= Grandiosity (formerly= Narcissism) (Items: 5, 13, 20, 26, 29, 37, and 45)
• I= Instability (formerly= Splitting) (Items: 4, 10, 16, 22, 35, 39, 41, 43, and 46)
• IM= Impression Management (new scale, experimental) (Items: 7, 14, 24, 32, and 38)

1. I have a sense of how God is working in my life

2.1. There are times when I feel disappointed with God

2.2. When this happens, I still want our relationship to continue

3 God’s presence feels very real to me

4 I am afraid that God will give up on me

5 Listening to God is an essential part of my life

6. Listening to God is an essential part of my life

7. I am always in a worshipful mood when I go to church

8.1. There are times when I feel frustrated with God

8.2. When I feel this way, I still desire to put effort into our relationship

9. I am aware of God prompting me to do things

10. My emotional connection with God is unstable

11. My experiences of God’s responses to me impact me greatly

12.1. There are times when I feel irritated at God

12.2. When I feel this way, I am able to come to some sense of resolution in our relationship

13. God recognizes that I am more spiritual than most people

14. I always seek God’s guidance for every decision I make

15. I am aware of God’s presence in my interactions with other people

16. There are times when I feel that God is punishing me

17. I am aware of God responding to me in a variety of ways

18.1. There are times when I feel angry at God

18.2. When this happens, I still have the sense that God will always be with me

19. I am aware of God attending to me in times of need

20. God understands that my needs are more important than most people’s

21. I am aware of God telling me to do something

22. I worry that I will be left out of God’s plans

23. My experiences of God’s presence impacts me greatly

24. I am always as kind at home as I am at church

25. I have a sense of the direction in which God is guiding me

26. My relationship with God is an extraordinary one that most people would not understand

27.1. There are times when I feel betrayed by God

27.2. When I feel this way, I put effort into restoring our relationship

28. I am aware of God communicating to me in a variety of ways

29. Manipulating God seems to be the best way to get what I want

30. I am aware of God’s presence in times of need

31. From day to day, I sense God being with me

32. I pray for all my friends and relatives every day

33.1. There are times when I feel frustrated by God for not responding to my prayers

33.2. When I feel this way, I am able to talk it through with God

34. I have a sense of God communicating guidance to me

35. When I sin, I tend to withdraw from God

36. I experience an awareness of God speaking to me personally

37. I find my prayers to God are more effective than other people’s

38. I am always in the mood to pray

39. I feel I have to please God or he might reject me

40. I have a strong impression of God’s presence

41. There are times when I feel that God is angry at me

42. I am aware of God being very near to me

43. When I sin, I am afraid of what God will do to me

44. When I consult God about decisions in my life, I am aware to my prayers of his direction and help

45. I seem to be more gifted than most people in discerning God’s will

46. When I feel God is not protecting me, I tend to feel worthless

47,1. There are times when I feel like God has let me down

47.2. When this happens, my trust in God is not completely broken