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religions ISSN 2077-1444 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Article

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale: Overview and Results Lynn G. Underwood Research Integration, 37 Forest Drive, Chagrin Falls, OH 44022, USA; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-440-708-8501 Received: 29 December 2010; in revised form: 5 January 2011 / Accepted: 10 January 2011 / Published: 12 January 2011

Abstract: The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) is a 16-item self-report measure designed to assess ordinary experiences of connection with the transcendent in daily life. It includes constructs such as awe, gratitude, mercy, sense of connection with the transcendent and compassionate love. It also includes measures of awareness of discernment/inspiration and a sense of deep inner peace. Originally developed for use in health studies, it has been increasingly used more widely in the social sciences, for program evaluation, and for examining changes in spiritual experiences over time. Also it has been used in counseling, addiction treatment settings, and religious organizations. It has been included in longitudinal health studies and in the U.S. General Social Survey which established random-sample population norms. It has publications on its psychometric validity in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Mandarin Chinese. Translations have been made into twenty languages including Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic and the scale has been effectively used in a variety of cultures. The 16-item scale does not have a psychometrically representative shorter form although a 6-item adaptation has been used. The DSES was developed using extensive qualitative testing in a variety of groups, which has helped its capacity to be useful in a variety of settings. It was constructed to reflect an overlapping circle model of spirituality/religiousness and contains items that are more specifically theistic in nature, as well as items to tap the spiritual experience of those who are not comfortable with theistic language. The scale has been used in over 70 published studies. This paper will provide an overview of the scale itself, describe why it has proved useful, and discuss some studies using the scale. See http://www.dsescale.org/ for more information on the scale. Keywords: DSES; spiritual experiences; spirituality; religiousness; assessment; well-being; quality of life

Religions 2011, 2

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Abbreviations: DSES: Daily Spiritual Experience Scale; DSE: Daily Spiritual Experience; GSS: General Social Survey; BMMRS: Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality; WHO: World Health Organization

1. Introduction and Background The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) is a sixteen-item self-report measure together with a brief introduction, designed to measure ordinary spiritual experiences (not dramatic mystical experiences such as near death experiences or hearing voices or seeing visions). It measures experiences of relationship with, and awareness of, the divine or transcendent and how beliefs and understandings form part of moment-to-moment features of life from a spiritual or religious perspective [1,2]. The DSES was constructed as a scale that allows for an “overlapping circles” concept of religiousness/spirituality. It was consciously constructed to have deep relevance for those comfortable with theistic religious language, but also to provide opportunities to respond for those who are not comfortable with a theistic view. The word ‘spirituality’ in the context of this scale refers to aspects of personal life that include the transcendent, divine or holy, “more than” what we can see or touch or hear. Details on intent of wording and of individual items and theoretical background can be found in two seminal papers on the scale [1,2]. Additional conceptual background can be found in other theoretical papers [3,4]. As the author of the DSES, and one of the lead developers of the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS) [5], this author sees religiousness/spirituality as a multidimensional construct. The DSES makes a significant contribution to measurement of this construct and continues to be actively useful in studies. This paper is designed to: (1) Give a review of some of the background to the instrument’s development; (2) give some of its psychometric properties; (3) discuss issues of adaptation, translation and interpretation; and (4) describe some areas of study in which it has proven useful including some empirical studies using the instrument. This scale drew upon the author’s pragmatic background in clinical medicine and epidemiology, where multiple ways to measure melanoma—a skin cancer—were tied to stage of diagnosis, which led to appropriately targeted efforts at education and improved early detection [6]. It also drew on the author’s work with measuring stress and social support and, especially, on identifying how clarity in those measures and their interpretation was key to the effective development of various kinds of interventions [7,8]. It is important that empirical measures o