Cross Validation of a Scale to Assess the Aspects of Fowler’s Model of Faith Development Suzanne Mallery, Paul Mallery Presented at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion Conference Gdańsk, Poland August 31-September 3, 2019 Correlations of the aspects of faith development factors with other measures of faith development, religious styles, religiosity, religious behavior, and social desirability. Aspect Stage Perspective Taking Social Horizon Morality Locus of Authority Form of World Coherence Symbolic Function 3 Synthetic- Conventional Defended Truth Ingroup Responsibility and Boundaries Follow God and Group Authority in Groups/ Leaders Groups and Leaders; Right or Wrong Views Truth and Symbols 4 Individuative- Reflective Perspective Taking Value Difference Order and Stability Authority in individuals Consistent and Appropriate Beliefs Value Symbols 5 Conjunctive Open to Family Difference Close to Different Others Universalizing Values Mystery Relation between factors that emerged for each aspect with faith development stages. Method Participants Five samples were used, for Perspective Taking, Social Horizon, Morality, Locus of Authority, and a combined sample for the Form of World Coherence and Symbolic Function aspects. For each sample, there were two subsamples, the first composed of college students at a small Christian university in California, and the second composed of participants from the United States collected from Mechanical Turk. Sample sizes ranged from 201 to 249. The mean participant age was 23.44 (SD = 8.57); 51% of participants were women, 44% men, and 5% other or declined to state. The sample was ethnically diverse, with 43% of participants identifying as White or Caucasian, 19% Hispanic, 17% Asian, 6% African American or Black, 4% multiethnic, and 10% other or decline to state. Participants were primarily Christian (65%), with 20% identifying as atheist, agnostic, or “none” and 15% identifying as another religion or declining to state. Scale Item Selection An initial pool of items was used in two college student samples to examine the factor structure of the items (Mallery & Mallery, 2015a, 2015b). Additional items were developed to specifically target missing stages or constructs from faith development theory, often using words or ideas from the coding criteria for the faith development interview (Fowler, Streib, & Keller, 2004). The interpretation of these factors was generally supported by the correlations between the factors for each stage of the aspects and measures of faith development and religious schemas (shown in the table below): Introduction We report here on the development and validation of a 114-item, quantitative, paper-and-pencil scale designed to independently assess all six aspects of stages/styles 3-5 of Fowler’s model of faith development (Fowler, 1981). Many of the items were drawn directly from the coding criteria for the faith development interview (Streib & Keller, 2018), but the sets of items that comprise the subscales for each stage of each aspect were ultimately determined empirically through factor analysis. Subscales were cross validated with scales designed to measure stage level/style of faith development, religiosity scales, and scales that measure other concepts similar to those tapped by each aspect of the faith development model. This scale is designed to be applicable and accessible to people regardless of their centers of meaning and value and whether they consider themselves spiritual or religious or none. Although Fowler’s faith development model provides a powerful way to conceptualize people’s concerns about and interest in meaning and value in their lives, it has not made significant inroads into mainstream empirical psychology. There are several likely reasons. First, measurement of the model has been a central challenge. Additionally, although the theory was based upon the empirical psychology of the 1960s and 1970s, critiques since that t