The Manifestation Scale

Abstract

The Manifestation Scale (MS), developed by Dixon, Hornsey, and Hartley (2025), is an 11-item psychometric instrument designed to quantify an individual’s perceived ability to attract success in life. This capacity is assessed through practices central to manifestation beliefs, such as employing **positive self-talk**, **visualization**, and engaging in **symbolic actions** (e.g., acting as if a desired outcome is already achieved).

The development process for the scale was comprehensive, incorporating an extensive literature review and several pilot studies. The instrument’s **psychometric properties**, including factor analysis, **reliability**, and validity, were evaluated using samples of community members recruited via the online platform **Prolific Academic**. The results support the scale’s structure and robustness for psychological research.

Keywords

Cosmic Collaboration, Personal Power, Manifestation Beliefs, Magical Thinking, Personality Measures, Wishful Thinking, Psychological Assessment.

Authors

Dixon, Lucas J.; Hornsey, Matthew J.; Hartley, Nicole

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Manifestation Scale is academic and exploratory: to investigate the underlying **psychology** of individuals who endorse manifestation beliefs. By quantifying this belief system, the scale allows researchers to examine its relationships with established psychological constructs, such as personality traits, decision-making styles, and self-efficacy.

Construct

The scale measures the overarching construct of **Manifestation Beliefs**, which is conceptualized as a higher-order factor comprising two distinct yet highly correlated subscales.

• Personal Power: This subscale captures the belief in one’s internal agency and mental techniques (like **visualization** and **positive self-talk**) as the primary drivers of success and goal attainment.

• Cosmic Collaboration: This subscale assesses the belief that external, often spiritual or universal, forces play a crucial role in responding to personal efforts and aiding the manifestation process.

Validity

The scale has undergone extensive assessments of both content and construct validity to ensure it accurately measures the intended construct.

• Content Validity: Content validity was established through consultation with five experts specializing in **magical beliefs**, **decision-making**, and **scale development**. Their feedback led to adjustments in item wording, particularly refining items related to external powers to ensure they specifically represent **manifestation** rather than broader magical thinking.

• Construct Validity: The Manifestation Scale demonstrated expected patterns of association with criterion measures. It showed a large bivariate association with **intuitive decision-making style** (r = .36) and a moderate association with **core self-evaluations** (r = .25). Furthermore, it showed good discriminant validity by having no significant association with **rational decision-making style** (r = .02) or **deferred gratification** (r = −.04).

Reliability

The reliability of the Manifestation Scale was evaluated through measures of internal consistency and stability across time.

• Internal Consistency: Both subscales demonstrated excellent internal reliability coefficients: **Personal Power** (alpha = .93) and **Cosmic Collaboration** (alpha = .94). When all 11 items were analyzed together, the higher-order scale also exhibited excellent reliability (alpha = .95).

• Test-Retest Reliability: Stability was confirmed using Spearman-Brown reliability coefficients over a 3-week interval. The higher-order Manifestation Scale showed high stability (.91). The subscales also maintained high stability: **Personal Power** (.88) and **Cosmic Collaboration** (.92).

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis was performed to confirm the dimensional structure of the Manifestation Scale, supporting its conceptualization as a two-factor model underlying a single higher-order construct.

• Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA): Using principal axis factor analysis with oblimin rotation, two factors with eigenvalues above 1.00 were identified. These two factors accounted for 73% of the variance in **manifestation belief**. Importantly, the factors were highly correlated (0.71), suggesting they are components of one overarching, **higher-order construct**.

• Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): The two-factor solution provided a better statistical fit than the one-factor solution. The initial fit metrics were generally acceptable, though the **Root Mean Square Error of Approximation** (RMSEA) was slightly elevated (.09). After including error co-variances suggested by modification indices (24.40, 9.05), the RMSEA reduced to .08, indicating an acceptable model fit according to standard criteria. Latent variable factor loadings for individual items were robust, ranging from .72 to .94.

Instrument

Test Type: Original

Format: Participants are introduced with instructions interested in their beliefs about achieving success. They indicate their agreement on a 7-point **Likert-type scale** ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Administration Method: Electronic

Language Available: English

Population Group: Human; Male; Female

Age Group: Adulthood (18 yrs & older)

Population Details: Community Members recruited in the **United States**.

Test Methodology:

• Test Validity
• Construct Validity
• Content Validity
• Test Reliability
• Internal Consistency
• Test-Retest Reliability
• Factor Analysis
• Confirmatory Factor Analysis
• Exploratory Factor Analysis

Keywords

Cosmic Collaboration, Personal Power, Manifestation Beliefs, Magical Thinking, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Psychometric properties, Visualization.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: No data is Available

Affiliation Email addresses: Dixon, Lucas J.: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Dixon, Lucas J.: University of Queensland, Business School, 37 Blair Drive, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia, 4072, [email protected]

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Contact Corresponding Author

Fee: No

Commercial: No

Test Year: 2025

Reference’s

Dixon, L. J., Hornsey, M. J., & Hartley, N. (2025). “The Secret” to success? The psychology of belief in manifestation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 51(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231181162

Items of the the Manifestation Scale

Number of items: This is an 11-item scale.

Factors and Subscales: Subscales: Personal power; Cosmic collaboration.

Test Items Available: No