Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES)

1. Abstract

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) is a widely utilized psychometric instrument developed by Lynn G. Underwood and Jeanne A. Teresi (2002) designed to quantify ordinary, day-to-day experiences of connection with the transcendent, divine, or sacred. Unlike conventional measures of religiosity that primarily assess institutional adherence, formal theological beliefs, or institutional involvement (such as church attendance or frequency of prayer), the DSES measures subjective, emotional, and cognitive encounters with the transcendent within ordinary routines. The full-length scale comprises 16 self-report items. Items 1 through 15 measure the frequency of specific spiritual experiences—such as feeling divine peace, sensing guidance, experiencing selfless caring, and feeling spiritually touched by creation—utilizing a 6-point, quasi-interval response format ranging from 1 (“Many times a day”) to 6 (“Never or almost never”). Item 16 assesses global perceived closeness to God or the transcendent on a distinct 4-point scale ranging from 1 (“Not close at all”) to 4 (“As close as possible”).

Extensive psychometric evaluations across clinical, epidemiological, and cross-cultural populations confirm that the DSES possesses exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .90 (typically between .91 and .95). Factor analytic investigations demonstrate a predominantly robust unidimensional structure across varied cultural and demographic groups, though some multidimensional solutions have identified distinct experiential subcomponents such as connection with the divine, inner peace, and compassionate love. Construct, convergent, and discriminant validity studies consistently demonstrate that higher DSES scores correlate with improved mental health, enhanced coping mechanisms under chronic illness, reduced depressive symptomatology, lower rates of burnout, and enhanced subjective well-being, while remaining statistically distinct from standard measures of positive affect, social support, and personality traits. The instrument is accessible in full (16-item) and shortened (e.g., 6-item) formats and has been translated and validated in dozens of languages globally.

2. Keywords

Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, DSES, spirituality, psychometrics, transcendent experiences, mental health, well-being, coping, religiosity, scale validation

3. Authors

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale was developed collaboratively by:

• Lynn G. Underwood, Ph.D.: Psychoneuroimmunologist, epidemiologist, and honorary fellow at the Center for the Study of Health and Society at the Case Western Reserve University, and Senior Research Research Associate at the Fetzer Institute. Dr. Underwood has spearheaded international research on the intersection of spirituality, health, and relational compassionate love.
• Jeanne A. Teresi, Ed.D., Ph.D.: Renowned psychometrician, Senior Research Scientist, and Director of the Research Division at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, and Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Teresi specializes in latent variable modeling, item response theory (IRT), and cross-cultural measurement invariance.

Correspondence regarding original scale development and ongoing longitudinal registries is managed through Dr. Underwood’s academic portals and the official repository at www.dsescale.org.

4. Purpose

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale was specifically engineered to overcome longstanding methodological limitations within behavioral medicine, psychiatry, and the psychology of religion. Historically, epidemiological and health psychology surveys relied heavily on static, demographic, or institutional indicators of religion, such as denomination, denominational membership, or frequency of attending institutional religious services. While these external markers reflect sociological ties and social capital, they often fail to capture the affective, phenomenological, and subjective dimensions of spirituality that directly influence human neurophysiology, stress reactivity, and emotional coping.

The primary purpose of the DSES is to operationalize and quantify the dynamic, everyday subjective experiences of an individual’s interaction with the sacred, transcendent, or divine. Developed as part of a national working group convened by the Fetzer Institute and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the scale was designed to provide health researchers with an instrument capable of measuring the lived, experiential aspects of spiritual life without being overly confounded by formal theological orthodoxies or doctrinal commitments.

From a research perspective, the DSES serves as an explanatory variable or mediator in models assessing the psychological and physical health outcomes of chronic stress, pain management, palliative care, and psychological recovery. In clinical and counseling settings, the DSES functions as a diagnostic and therapeutic intake instrument, enabling clinicians to assess a patient’s spiritual resources, existential coping mechanisms, and potential spiritual distress. Because the scale incorporates open-ended phenomenological descriptors—such as feeling peace, sensing direct guidance, or experiencing awe when observing nature—it can be utilized effectively among traditional religious adherents (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist) as well as non-theistic or spiritually oriented individuals who conceptualize the sacred in non-traditional ways.

5. Psychological Construct

The central psychological construct measured by the DSES is ordinary daily spiritual experience—defined as the daily perception of, and interaction with, the transcendent or divine in ordinary life. Underwood conceptualized this construct as distinct from cognitive beliefs (e.g., believing in an afterlife), religious behaviors (e.g., fasting, church attendance), or moral doctrines. Rather, the DSES measures an experiential continuum comprising affective, cognitive, and interpersonal dimensions:

• Perceived Transcendent Presence and Connection: Manifested in items such as “I feel God’s presence” and “I experience a connection all life.” This dimension captures an ongoing awareness of a benevolent divine or transcendent reality woven into secular tasks. It reflects an ontological orientation wherein the individual does not feel isolated in the universe, buffering against existential angst and loneliness.
• Spiritual Comfort, Strength, and Peace: Exemplified by “I find strength in my religion or spirituality,” “I find comfort in my religion or spirituality,” and “I feel deep inner peace or harmony.” This dimension reflects internalized emotional regulation derived from spiritual resources, which fosters emotional resilience when encountering somatic pain, life transitions, or acute stress.
• Transcendent Joy and Awe: Captured by items such as “During worship, or at other times when connecting with God, I feel joy, which lifts me out of my daily concerns” and “I am spiritually touched by the beauty of creation.” This dimension taps into profound subjective states characterized by awe and transcendent positive emotion, which have been shown to deactivate the default mode network and downregulate autonomic arousal.
• Spiritual Support and Guidance in Routine Coping: Illustrated through “I ask for God’s help in the midst of daily activities” and “I feel guided by God in the midst of daily activities.” This reflects the integration of the sacred into micro-level problem-solving and executive functioning throughout the day.
• Experienced Compassionate Love and Altruism: Measured by items such as “I feel God’s love for me directly,” “I feel God’s love for me through others,” “I feel a selfless caring for others,” and “I accept others even when they do things that I think are wrong.” This reflects an outward-facing prosocial orientation grounded in the subjective experience of unconditional love, facilitating interpersonal forgiveness, empathy, and social cohesion.
• Desire for Union and Relational Closeness: Reflected in “I desire to be closer to God or in union with Him” and Item 16 (“In general, how close to you feel to God?”). This dimension gauges the motivational and attachment aspects of spirituality, capturing an ongoing relational dynamic with the divine.

6. Theoretical Framework

The DSES is grounded in an interdisciplinary theoretical framework drawing from phenomenology, transactional stress and coping theory, attachment theory, and positive psychology. The scale’s foundational premise emerges from the classical phenomenological traditions of William James (1902), who argued in The Varieties of Religious Experience that personal religion consists of the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves in relation to whatever they may consider the divine. By prioritizing direct experiential encounters over formal institutional dogma, Underwood operationalized James’s phenomenological core for empirical psychometrics.

From the perspective of Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping, daily spiritual experiences function as primary appraisals and powerful cognitive-emotional coping resources. When confronting chronic stressors—such as terminal illness, systemic socioeconomic adversity, or bereavement—individuals who experience frequent feelings of transcendent peace, divine guidance, and deep comfort are equipped to reappraise negative life events through a lens of benevolent meaning. This process, often referred to in health psychology as positive religious coping (Pargament, 1997), prevents catastrophic interpretations of suffering and dampens neuroendocrine stress cascades (e.g., hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation).

Furthermore, the DSES interfaces directly with psychological attachment theory (Bowlby; Kirkpatrick, 2005). The construct posits that individuals frequently form an emotional attachment to God or the transcendent analogous to parent-child or relational attachment. Items evaluating divine love, seeking help during daily trials, and experiencing divine comfort operationalize a “secure base” and “safe haven” dynamic. This transcendent secure attachment fosters emotional equilibrium, mitigates existential dread, and provides the psychological safety required to engage in prosocial, altruistic behaviors toward others.

7. Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established robust validity profiles for the DSES across clinical, non-clinical, and cross-cultural cohorts:

• Construct Validity: Initial construct validation by Underwood and Teresi (2002) in both urban and rural samples, as well as analyses from the General Social Survey (GSS), demonstrated that the scale effectively discriminates between distinct dimensions of religious involvement. While correlated with intrinsic religious orientation (Allport & Ross), it remains empirically distinct from extrinsic religious motivations, formal theological conservatism, or simple denominational affiliation.
• Convergent Validity: The DSES demonstrates statistically significant positive correlations with validated measures of quality of life, subjective well-being (e.g., Satisfaction with Life Scale), self-efficacy, and social support inventories. Moderate correlations are consistently found with indices of positive religious coping (Brief RCOPE), optimistic attributional styles, and trait empathy. Importantly, in clinical populations—such as oncology patients, individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain—higher DSES scores correlate with improved health-related quality of life (SF-36 physical and mental component summaries).
• Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity has been rigorously demonstrated against measures of social desirability (e.g., Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale), indicating that high frequencies of spiritual experience are not merely artifacts of impression management. Furthermore, the DSES shows low-to-negligible correlations with external demographic metrics (socioeconomic status, educational level) and remains distinct from general positive affectivity as measured by the PANAS, demonstrating that it measures transcendent experience rather than simple cheerful temperament.
• Predictive and Longitudinal Validity: Longitudinal studies demonstrate that baseline DSES scores prospectively predict lower rates of clinical depression, reduced incidence of relapse among individuals recovering from substance abuse disorders (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous cohorts), decreased systemic markers of chronic inflammation (such as C-reactive protein and interleukin-6), and increased longevity in older adult cohorts, even after controlling for baseline health status, smoking, and socioeconomic variables.

8. Reliability

The DSES demonstrates high reliability metrics across a wide array of demographic strata, languages, and clinical conditions:

• Internal Consistency: Across dozens of empirical investigations, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the full 16-item scale consistently range between .91 and .95, indicating excellent internal item homogeneity. In the original psychometric validation by Underwood and Teresi (2002), the internal consistency was reported at α = .94 for the full instrument. Shortened versions, such as the widely used 6-item brief DSES, maintain high internal consistency, typically yielding alpha coefficients ranging from .86 to .91. McDonald’s omega (ω) values similarly conform to these high reliability benchmarks (ω > .92).
• Test-Retest Reliability: Longitudinal stability has been demonstrated through test-retest evaluations over intervals ranging from several weeks to six months. Underwood and Teresi reported an intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and Pearson test-retest coefficient exceeding .85 over a two-week interval, confirming that while the scale captures “daily” experiences, it reliably measures a stable personal propensity or spiritual trajectory over time rather than transitory situational fluctuations.
• Measurement Invariance and Equivalence: Psychometric analyses using Item Response Theory (IRT) and structural equation modeling (SEM) confirm that the items maintain differential item functioning (DIF) invariance across gender, racial cohorts (African American, Hispanic, Caucasian), and age brackets, confirming that the scale functions equivalently across diverse demographic groups.

9. Factor Analysis

The latent dimensionality of the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale has been scrutinized through extensive exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA):

• Unidimensionality: In the seminal developmental study by Underwood and Teresi (2002), exploratory factor analysis conducted on items 1 through 15 yielded a strong, single-factor solution. The primary eigenvalue substantially dominated the scree plot (accounting for over 60% to 70% of total variance across diverse samples), with all 15 items exhibiting primary factor loadings ranging from .65 to .88. Confirmatory factor analytic models testing a single-factor higher-order construct generally exhibit acceptable to superior goodness-of-fit indices: Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .95, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .94, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) ≤ .06.
• Multidimensional Formulations: Although the scale was designed and is overwhelmingly scored as a single continuous dimension, subsequent cross-cultural CFA evaluations (e.g., validation studies in French, Spanish, German, and Chinese populations) have occasionally isolated two- or three-factor second-order models that provide marginal improvements in statistical fit. These sub-factors typically bifurcate along: (a) Theistic/Divine Connection (items explicitly addressing God, guidance, and divine love), (b) Self-Transcendent Peace and Awe (items emphasizing inner harmony, connection to all life, and the beauty of creation), and (c) Compassionate Altruism (selfless caring and acceptance of others). Despite these latent sub-dimensions, the extremely high inter-factor correlations (frequently r > .80) provide strong mathematical justification for treating the DSES as a unified composite score.
• Item 16 Factor Characteristics: Item 16 (“In general, how close to you feel to God?”) is universally evaluated separately or modeled with distinct scaling constraints due to its 4-point response metric. When transformed or included in standardized SEM models, it consistently loads onto the primary spiritual experience latent factor at ≥ .75.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES)
• Authors: Lynn G. Underwood, Ph.D. & Jeanne A. Teresi, Ed.D., Ph.D.
• Year Published: 2002
• Construct Measured: Frequency of ordinary subjective experiences of connection with the divine, transcendent, or sacred in everyday life
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil, computer-based digital questionnaire, or structured clinical interview
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes for the full 16-item version
• Item Count: 16 total items (15 daily frequency items + 1 global closeness item)
• Response Format (Items 1–15): 6-point quasi-interval Likert scale:
  • 1 = Many times a day
  • 2 = Every day
  • 3 = Most days
  • 4 = Some days
  • 5 = Once in a while
  • 6 = Never or almost never
• Response Format (Item 16): 4-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Not close at all
  • 2 = Somewhat close
  • 3 = Very close
  • 4 = As close as possible
• Scoring and Interpretation Procedures:
  • Scoring Option A (Original Formulation): Summing or averaging items 1 to 15 directly. In the original format, lower numerical values represent higher frequencies of daily spiritual experience.
  • Scoring Option B (Reverse Scored – Widely Preferred in Health Research): Reverse score items 1 to 15 (e.g., 6 = “Many times a day”, 1 = “Never or almost never”) so that higher numerical totals reflect greater spiritual experience. Under this scheme, summed scores for items 1–15 range from 15 to 90, or an average item score ranging from 1 to 6.
  • Item 16: Item 16 is traditionally analyzed as a separate indicator of global subjective proximity to the transcendent, or standardized and combined when forming structural latent constructs.
  • Short Forms: A psychometrically validated 6-item version (typically utilizing items 1, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12) is frequently employed in extensive epidemiological surveys (such as the General Social Survey).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale was developed in 2002 through collaborative initiatives supported by the Fetzer Institute and the National Institute on Aging. Dr. Lynn G. Underwood retains the copyright to the scale. The instrument is made accessible free of charge for non-commercial academic research, individual clinical practice, educational purposes, and non-profit health investigations, provided that appropriate bibliographic citations are rendered and the items remain unmodified.

Researchers intending to use the scale in funded clinical trials, multi-site studies, or commercial applications should consult the official registry portal at www.dsescale.org to review current licensing requirements, download certified translations in over 40 languages, and register their investigations. Any modification, re-translation, or digital redistribution in proprietary software requires explicit written consent from the author.

12. References

• James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. Longmans, Green, and Co. https://doi.org/10.1037/10004-000
• Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. Guilford Press.
• Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.
• Pargament, K. I. (1997). The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice. Guilford Press.
• Underwood, L. G. (2006). A working model of health: Spirituality and healthy functioning. In P. H. Ellison & C. G. Ellison (Eds.), Why religion and spirituality matter for public health and medicine (pp. 121–144). Haworth Press.
• Underwood, L. G. (2011). The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale: Overview and results. Religions, 2(1), 29–50. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel2010029
• Underwood, L. G., & Teresi, J. A. (2002). The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale: Development, theoretical description, reliability, exploratory factor analysis, and preliminary construct validity using health-related data. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 24(1), 22–33. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15324796ABM2401_04

13. Items of the Scale