Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI)

1. Abstract

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) is an empirically validated psychometric instrument developed by Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards (1996, 2002) designed to operationalize spiritual development and theistic relational maturity through the dual theoretical lenses of object relations theory and attachment theory. Moving beyond conventional religious measures that merely assess cognitive belief adherence, doctrinal orthodoxy, or institutional behavioral frequency, the SAI conceptualizes spirituality as an experiential, affective, and relational bond with the transcendent (specifically, God within a theistic framework). The instrument delineates two broad systemic dimensions: the quality of the individual’s emotional relationship with God and their level of awareness of God’s presence and activity.

The revised SAI comprises multiple core subscales: Awareness, Realistic Acceptance (formerly termed Healthy Ambivalence), Disappointment (formerly Defensiveness), Grandiosity (formerly Narcissism), Instability (formerly Splitting), and an experimental Impression Management control scale. Administered using a five-point Likert response scale ranging from 1 (“Not At All True”) to 5 (“Very True”), the instrument demonstrates robust psychometric properties across clinical, counseling, and non-clinical populations. Internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) typically range from .73 to .95 across primary dimensions, with extensive confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling confirming its multi-dimensional construct validity, construct distinctiveness, and structural stability. The SAI is extensively employed in empirical psychology of religion, Christian clinical psychology, theological education, and pastoral counseling.

2. Keywords

Spiritual Assessment Inventory, Todd W. Hall, Keith J. Edwards, object relations theory, attachment to God, theistic spirituality, psychometrics, relational maturity, psychological defense mechanisms, spiritual development

3. Authors

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory was conceived, validated, and refined by senior researchers affiliated with the Rosemead School of Psychology at Biola University (La Mirada, California, USA):

• Todd W. Hall, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University. Dr. Hall is a licensed psychologist, scholar, and author specializing in relational psychoanalysis, attachment theory, spiritual formation, and the integration of psychology and Christian theology. E-mail: [email protected].
• Keith J. Edwards, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University. Dr. Edwards has authored pioneering research on psychometrics, research methodology, family systems, and the empirical measurement of religious and spiritual maturity. E-mail: [email protected].

4. Purpose

For decades, empirical inquiry into religious and spiritual constructs was dominated by behavioral inventories measuring church attendance, prayer frequency, or strict cognitive metrics of doctrinal orthodoxy. While informative regarding external social observance, such instruments routinely failed to capture the psychological depth, affective dynamics, and developmental maturity of an individual’s personal spirituality. The primary purpose of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI) is to provide a clinically rich, psychometrically rigorous assessment of an individual’s experiential, emotional relationship with God, drawing directly upon psychoanalytic and developmental psychology.

Hall and Edwards recognized that individuals possessing identical scores on conventional religious orientation scales (such as intrinsic or extrinsic religiosity) frequently exhibit profoundly divergent psychological adjustments, defenses, and relational functioning. For instance, an individual might engage in high-frequency devotional practices driven by acute relational terror, pathological narcissism, or neurotic guilt, whereas another person might exhibit identical religious behaviors anchored in profound trust, psychological integration, and capacity for relational intimacy. The SAI addresses this critical diagnostic gap by measuring psychological integration and maturity within spiritual experience.

In clinical and pastoral contexts, the SAI serves multiple diagnostic and evaluative functions:

• Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment Planning: It allows psychotherapists, spiritual directors, and Christian mental health practitioners to identify pathological defense mechanisms projected onto the God-image, such as splitting, spiritual grandiosity, persecutory anxiety, or emotional detachment.
• Spiritual Formation and Trajectory Monitoring: Theological seminaries and training programs utilize the SAI to track the psychological and relational maturation of ministerial candidates, facilitating self-reflection regarding spiritual blind spots.
• Empirical Research: The scale enables researchers in the psychology of religion to examine how developmental attachments, relational schemas, emotional regulation strategies, and personality structures intersect with theistic faith, mental health outcomes, and coping styles during existential crises.

5. Psychological Construct

The theoretical architecture of the SAI operationalizes spiritual maturity not as affective perfection or the total absence of spiritual distress, but rather as the capacity for relational depth, emotional authenticity, and the resilient management of relational ambivalence. The instrument encompasses six distinct yet interrelated dimensions:

Awareness (A)

The Awareness dimension assesses an individual’s subjective, experiential sensitivity to God’s presence, daily communication, and active guidance in life. Drawing conceptually from contemplative spiritual traditions and relational interaction models, this subscale measures the degree to which a person perceives God as an active, responsive partner in day-to-day encounters rather than an abstract, distant intellectual concept. High scores indicate an acute experiential sense of divine proximity, guidance, and responsiveness.

Realistic Acceptance (RA)

Originally designated as Healthy Ambivalence, the Realistic Acceptance scale measures an individual’s psychological capacity to maintain a secure relational commitment with God even in the face of disappointment, perceived abandonment, frustration, or unanswered prayer. Rooted in the object relations concept of object constancy, realistic acceptance represents the developmental milestone wherein the individual can tolerate negative emotions toward the attachment figure without resorting to defensive flight, relational rupture, or emotional cutoff. Respondents scoring high acknowledge that relational strain does not destroy underlying covenantal trust.

Disappointment (D)

Initially labeled Defensiveness, the Disappointment subscale measures the conscious experience of negative affect toward God, encompassing feelings of betrayal, anger, irritation, or being let down. In early versions of the instrument, inability or unwillingness to admit to disappointment was interpreted as defensive denial. In the revised framework, items measuring disappointment paired with realistic acceptance capture the respondent’s willingness to acknowledge authentic relational difficulty, reflecting emotional transparency rather than repressing conflict under a veneer of pious compliance.

Grandiosity (G)

Formerly conceptualized as Narcissism, Grandiosity assesses an inflated, entitled, or spiritually superior orientation toward God and others. Rooted in pathological narcissistic defenses, this construct measures the degree to which an individual views themselves as possessing special favor, superior spiritual discernment, or more effective prayers than ordinary believers. It also captures manipulative attitudes toward divinity, such as treating prayer as a coercive mechanism to enforce personal will rather than humble submission.

Instability (I)

Formerly designated as Splitting, the Instability scale reflects deep-seated relational insecurity, persecutory anxiety, and primitive psychological defense mechanisms. Individuals scoring high on instability experience abrupt oscillations in their perception of God—vacillating between an idealized protector and a punitive, rejecting persecutor. It measures intense fear of abandonment, spiritual worthlessness upon failing moral standards, and the tendency to withdraw from God in terror when facing personal sinfulness or vulnerability.

Impression Management (IM)

The Impression Management scale is an experimental control dimension derived from social desirability frameworks. It evaluates the tendency of respondents to present an unrealistically virtuous, sanctimonious, or conflict-free spiritual persona (e.g., claiming to never experience distraction in prayer or always feeling profoundly worshipful in religious settings). This subscale aids clinicians and psychometricians in detecting response bias, overly idealized reporting, and lack of self-awareness.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory integrates two major traditions within psychodynamic and developmental psychology: Object Relations Theory, primarily through the contributions of W. R. D. Fairbairn, Melanie Klein, Donald W. Winnicott, and Ana-Maria Rizzuto, and modern Attachment Theory as pioneered by John Bowlby and extended into religion by Lee A. Kirkpatrick.

Object Relations and the Representation of God

Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s seminal clinical work, The Birth of the Living God (1979), demonstrated that an individual’s subjective representation of God is constructed out of early internal object representations derived from primary caregivers. As child development progresses, these internalized representations form an internal working model of self and other. Hall and Edwards applied these principles directly to spiritual maturity:

• Primitive Splitting vs. Whole Object Integration: In early developmental stages (Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position), the psyche defends against anxiety by splitting the object into “all-good” and “all-bad.” When applied to the divine, an individual experiencing spiritual instability views God as completely loving when circumstances are favorable, but utterly rejecting, wrathful, and hostile when difficulties emerge.
• Attainment of Object Constancy: Relational maturity (Klein’s depressive position) requires the integration of positive and negative affects toward the same relational object. The individual learns that God can be experienced with anger or disappointment without the loving relationship being destroyed. This directly underpins the SAI’s Realistic Acceptance subscale.

Attachment Theory to the Divine

Kirkpatrick’s attachment framework conceptualizes God as an attachment figure who functions as a safe haven in times of distress and a secure base for exploratory behavior. The SAI operationalizes variations in attachment security: securely attached believers demonstrate high Awareness and high Realistic Acceptance; anxious/ambivalent believers exhibit elevated Instability and acute dread of divine abandonment; avoidant believers manifest emotional detachment; and narcissistic personalities employ Grandiosity as a defensive compensation against profound underlying feelings of unworthiness.

7. Validity

Extensive empirical investigation across clinical, university, and community samples supports the construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Hall and Edwards (1996, 2002) conducted rigorous convergent validity testing comparing SAI subscales to established psychological and religious instruments:

• Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory (BORRTI): The SAI Instability scale correlated positively and robustly with the BORRTI Alienation ($r = .52, p < .001$) and Insecure Attachment ($r = .48, p < .001$) subscales, verifying that spiritual instability reflects generalized relational deficits and object-relational pathology.
• Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS): The SAI Awareness subscale demonstrated substantial positive correlations with Religious Well-Being ($r = .71, p < .001$) and Existential Well-Being ($r = .54, p < .001$), confirming that experiential awareness of divine presence is central to perceived spiritual health.
• Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA): Studies examining parental attachment found that adult attachment security to parents significantly predicted lower scores on SAI Instability and higher scores on Realistic Acceptance, confirming the developmental continuity between human attachment patterns and attachment to God.

Discriminant and Criterion-Related Validity

Discriminant validity was established through low to non-significant correlations between the SAI scales and generalized cognitive intellectual ability. Furthermore, the Grandiosity scale correlates positively with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), successfully differentiating authentic spiritual depth from defensive spiritual grandiosity. Studies investigating psychological distress demonstrate that the Instability and Disappointment subscales significantly predict generalized anxiety, depressive symptom severity, and poor clinical prognosis, whereas Realistic Acceptance functions as an empirical buffer against existential despair.

8. Reliability

The Spiritual Assessment Inventory has consistently demonstrated strong internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse psychological and theological cohorts:

Internal Consistency Reliability

Across validation studies conducted by Hall and Edwards (1996, 2002) as well as subsequent independent doctoral dissertations (e.g., Childs, 2014), Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients have demonstrated the following distributions:

• Awareness: Consistently exhibits exemplary reliability, typically ranging from $lpha = .90$ to $lpha = .95$, reflecting a highly cohesive experiential construct.
• Disappointment: Demonstrates excellent internal consistency, with $lpha$ coefficients consistently observed between $.90$ and $.91$.
• Instability: Displays robust internal consistency across populations, ranging from $lpha = .84$ to $lpha = .88$.
• Realistic Acceptance: Demonstrates strong reliability, yielding alpha values between $lpha = .76$ and $lpha = .83$.
• Grandiosity: Exhibits moderate internal consistency across samples, typically ranging from $lpha = .52$ in exploratory community samples to $lpha = .73$ in targeted psychometric evaluations. The lower alpha in some samples reflects the multi-faceted nature of grandiose defensiveness and lower endorsement base rates due to social censure.
• Impression Management: Yields acceptable experimental reliability coefficients, typically ranging between $lpha = .68$ and $lpha = .74$.

Test-Retest Stability

Studies examining temporal stability over intervals ranging from four to eight weeks indicate strong test-retest reliability ($r_{tt} > .80$) for the Awareness, Instability, and Realistic Acceptance dimensions, confirming that the SAI measures enduring object-relational personality traits rather than transient emotional fluctuations or state-dependent mood swings.

9. Factor Analysis

The dimensional architecture of the SAI has been systematically examined and replicated using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Item Response Theory (IRT).

Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis

In the original validation studies (Hall & Edwards, 1996), principal components analysis with varimax and promax rotations supported the emergence of distinct factors corresponding to Awareness, Instability (Splitting), Grandiosity (Narcissism), and Realistic Acceptance (Healthy Ambivalence). Subsequent CFA investigations (Hall & Edwards, 2002) tested competing structural models, confirming that a multi-factor correlated model provided superior fit compared to unidimensional or orthogonal configurations.

The confirmatory models yielded favorable fit indices across independent samples: Comparative Fit Index ($CFI > .90$), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($RMSEA < .06, 90% CI [0.051, 0.068]$), and standardized root mean square residual ($SRMR < .07$). All target items exhibited standardized factor loadings exceeding $.40$ on their designated latent factors, with primary Awareness items regularly loading above $.70$.

Item Response Theory (IRT) Validation

In a landmark psychometric evaluation, Hall, Reise, and Haviland (2007) subjected the SAI to modern Item Response Theory analysis utilizing the graded response model (GRM). The IRT findings revealed:

• The Awareness scale possesses exceptionally high item discrimination parameters, providing precise measurement across the entire spectrum of latent spiritual sensitivity.
• The Instability scale effectively identifies individuals at the clinical and distressed end of the developmental spectrum, functioning effectively as a diagnostic detector of spiritual pathology.
• IRT parameter evaluations led to refined item selection, confirming that the five-point response continuum exhibits balanced threshold parameters without category redundancy.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Spiritual Assessment Inventory (SAI)
• Developers: Todd W. Hall, Ph.D., and Keith J. Edwards, Ph.D.
• Measurement Focus: Object relations maturity, attachment security, and experiential awareness in relationship with God
• Target Population: Adults, clinical outpatients, university students, seminarians, and church congregants within theistic frameworks
• Administration Format: Self-report paper-and-pencil or interactive digital computer administration
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale:
  • 1 = Not At All True
  • 2 = Slightly True
  • 3 = Moderately True
  • 4 = Substantially True
  • 5 = Very True
• Structural Item Pairing / Stem Architecture: Several dimensions (Realistic Acceptance paired with Disappointment) employ a two-tiered conditional structure (e.g., item 2.1 assesses negative emotion, followed immediately by item 2.2 assessing relational commitment in that context).
• Subscale Key and Item Distribution:
  • Awareness (A): Items 1, 3, 6, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 40, 42, 44
  • Realistic Acceptance (RA): Items 2.2, 8.2, 12.2, 18.2, 27.2, 33.2, 47.2
  • Disappointment (D): Items 2.1, 8.1, 12.1, 18.1, 27.1, 33.1, 47.1
  • Grandiosity (G): Items 5, 13, 20, 26, 29, 37, 45
  • Instability (I): Items 4, 10, 16, 22, 35, 39, 41, 43, 46
  • Impression Management (IM): Items 7, 14, 24, 32, 38
• Scoring Procedures: Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum of items within each scale. High scores on Awareness and Realistic Acceptance signify mature, integrated spirituality. High scores on Instability, Grandiosity, and Disappointment indicate relational conflict, defensiveness, or psychodynamic immaturity. Impression Management assists in evaluating response distortion.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The initial form of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory was published in 1996, with its definitive revised version published in 2002. Follow-up psychometric and IRT studies appeared in 2007.

Permissions and Licensing: The Spiritual Assessment Inventory is copyrighted by Todd W. Hall and Keith J. Edwards. It is made broadly accessible for non-profit scholarly research, clinical training, and academic dissertations without licensing fees, provided proper citation is maintained and the developers’ intellectual property is credited. Commercial applications, widespread institutional distribution, or incorporation within commercial digital assessment platforms require explicit formal authorization from the primary authors (contact: Dr. Todd W. Hall at Biola University via [email protected]).

12. References

Below are primary academic references documenting the development, psychometric validation, and theoretical modeling of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory:

• Childs, C. Y. (2014). Exploratory factor analysis of the Spiritual Wellness Inventory (Doctoral dissertation, Cleveland State University). OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=csu1409218531&disposition=inline
• Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (1996). The initial development and factor analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 24(3), 233–249. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164719602400305
• 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. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5906.00121
• Hall, T. W., Reise, S. P., & Haviland, M. G. (2007). An item response theory analysis of the Spiritual Assessment Inventory. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 17(2), 157–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508610701244155
• Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. Guilford Press.
• Rizzuto, A.-M. (1979). The birth of the living God: A psychoanalytic study. University of Chicago Press.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)