What I Believe Scale

Abstract

The What I Believe Scale (WIB) is a specialized psychometric instrument developed by psychometric researchers N. T. Gill and L. H. Thornton (1989) to evaluate and differentiate among three predominant philosophical and religious worldviews: Judeo-Christian Theism, Atheism/Secular Humanism, and Spiritism/Occultism. Composed of 50 dichotomous (True/False) items, the scale was constructed not merely as an ideological classification inventory, but as an empirical tool to investigate how specific metaphysical orientations interact with adolescent personality constructs—most notably self-esteem, perceived self-efficacy, and academic performance. The scale operates through an innovative scoring taxonomy that distinguishes between foundational (core) doctrinal tenets and peripheral (satellite) belief expressions. Scoring protocols yield three distinct continuous metrics: a comprehensive 50-item Judeo-Christian Total score and two targeted 25-item subscale scores measuring Atheism/Secular Humanism and Spiritism/Occultism, respectively, each scaled on a normalized 0 to 100 percentage metric. Initial psychometric standardization on a dual cohort of high school seniors (N = 179) spanning public and parochial secondary institutions demonstrated acceptable two-week test-retest reliability (r = .79, n = 17) and strong known-groups criterion validity, with targeted ideological cohorts achieving near-perfect discriminant accuracy and demonstrating theoretically anticipated inverse relationships between orthodox theism and secular humanism. This article provides a comprehensive academic analysis of the scale’s theoretical underpinnings, psychometric properties, scoring methodology, factor structure, and modern educational and clinical research applications.

Keywords

What I Believe Scale, WIB, religious orientation, secular humanism, occult beliefs, spiritism, adolescent worldview, self-esteem, psychometrics, faith development, ideological measurement, religious psychology, Judeo-Christian beliefs

Authors

The What I Believe Scale (WIB) was conceived, standardized, and empirically introduced by:

• Newell T. Gill, Ph.D. — Educational psychologist and psychometrician whose research focused on cognitive variables, ideological development, and affective outcomes in secondary and higher education environments. Affiliated with educational research institutions in Florida, USA.
• Larry H. Thornton, Ph.D. — Researcher in educational psychology and measurement, focusing on adolescent development, comparative belief frameworks, school-based religious orientations, and adolescent self-concept. Affiliated with educational psychology departments in Florida, USA.

Initial validation studies and regional presentations were coordinated through the Florida Educational Research Association (FERA) and formally disseminated in peer-reviewed academic literature via The High School Journal in late 1989.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the What I Believe Scale is to provide educational psychologists, developmental researchers, sociologists of religion, and clinical counselors with a standardized metric capable of systematically categorizing an individual’s metaphysical worldview while evaluating the affective and cognitive ramifications of those belief systems. Historically, empirical research in the psychology of religion suffered from unidimensional constructs—frequently conflating institutional religious observance (such as church attendance frequency) with the psychological internalization of specific theological or philosophical systems. Gill and Thornton sought to rectify these limitations by developing an objective survey that captures the nuanced ideological commitments of emerging adults.

Specifically, the WIB fulfills three primary empirical and applied objectives:

1. Tri-Partite Worldview Categorization: The scale discriminates between three major, competing philosophical paradigms operating within Western societies: traditional monotheistic orthodoxy (represented as Judeo-Christian), scientific naturalism and non-theism (Atheism and Secular Humanism), and non-traditional esoteric or paranormal systems (Spiritism, Occultism, and psychic determinism).
2. Investigation of Affective and Academic Correlates: A central hypothesis guiding the scale’s genesis was that metaphysical certainty, existential coherence, and moral frameworks profoundly influence personality structures—particularly global self-esteem, perceived purpose in life, internal versus external locus of control, and scholastic achievement among high school and collegiate cohorts.
3. Delineation of Core versus Satellite Belief Systems: The instrument was engineered to assess not only whether an individual assents to general cultural motifs, but whether they adhere to foundational epistemological axioms versus peripheral, culturally absorbed superstitions or secondary ideological tenets.

In clinical and developmental contexts, the scale provides adolescent counselors and educational diagnosticians with insight into existential distress, moral identity confusion, or ideological radicalization. By identifying whether an adolescent’s belief profile is integrated, polarized, or fragmented across incompatible belief domains, practitioners can contextualize academic underachievement, behavioral alienation, or existential anxiety within the client’s broader framework of meaning.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct measured by the What I Believe Scale is metaphysical worldview orientation, defined as an integrated cognitive schema concerning the fundamental nature of reality, the existence and character of the transcendent, the origins and moral status of human nature, and the epistemological boundaries of scientific inquiry. Rather than treating religiousness as a simple, continuous gradient from “non-religious” to “highly religious,” the WIB operationalizes worldview as a multidimensional semantic space comprised of three distinct ideological categories and two functional tiers of belief cognitive architecture.

1. Judeo-Christian Theism

This dimension reflects classical Western theism, characterized by belief in a personal, omnipotent, loving, and just Creator God who exists externally from creation, possesses intentional agency, and interacts dynamically with humanity. Epistemologically, it affirms the reality of objective moral orders, the validity of prayer as relational communication with the Divine, the reality of historic miracles, and the reality of a spiritual battle between good and evil forces. Anthropologically, human nature is viewed within a framework of moral accountability, fallenness or inherent selfishness, and spiritual redeemability. High scores on this dimension reflect an orthodox theistic cognitive schema that rejects metaphysical naturalism, occult manipulation, and pantheistic cosmic impersonalism.

2. Atheism and Secular Humanism

This dimension operationalizes philosophical naturalism, epistemological positivism, and anthropocentric ethics. The construct is grounded in the foundational assumption that physical reality is self-contained, governed entirely by natural laws, and fully accessible through empirical observation, logic, and scientific advancement. It explicitly rejects supernatural agency, personal deities, transcendent moral imperatives, post-mortem survival, and spiritual intervention. Anthropologically, human potential, intelligence, and autonomous moral capacity are elevated, while religious doctrines—such as eternal damnation, voodoo, or divine revelation—are viewed as superstitious relics, unscientific, or counterproductive to human welfare.

3. Spiritism and Occultism

This subscale captures belief in esoteric, paranormal, and monistic metaphysical phenomena. The construct encompasses convictions regarding psychic energies, extrasensory perception (ESP), transcendental meditation, post-mortem spirit communication (necromancy/mediumship), reincarnation or transmigration of spirits, astrology, and ritualistic manipulation of supernatural forces (e.g., voodoo, talismans, black magic). Metaphysically, it frequently conceptualizes God not as an external, personal judge, but as an impersonal cosmic energy, mind, or conductor system that clever or initiated human agents can harness to their advantage.

Architectural Distinction: Core versus Satellite Beliefs

A crucial theoretical innovation of Gill and Thornton’s construct formulation is the distinction between core (foundational) beliefs and satellite (peripheral) responses:

• Core Beliefs: Axiomatic propositions that form the structural foundation of a worldview. Rejection of a core belief necessitates the collapse or severe compromise of that worldview (e.g., affirming that “There are two supernatural spiritual beings of major significance in the universe: a loving and just creator, and an evil force or spirit” for Judeo-Christianity; or affirming that “There is a natural order to everything and all phenomena can be explained naturally” for Atheism/Secular Humanism).
• Satellite Beliefs: Peripheral attitudes, cultural superstitions, or secondary behavioral preferences that, while probabilistically correlated with a worldview, do not constitute logical prerequisites for membership (e.g., enjoying tales of horror and the macabre, or casually reading horoscopes).

Theoretical Framework

The construction of the What I Believe Scale draws upon several prominent theories within cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and the scientific study of religion.

1. James Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development

The WIB is situated within the developmental paradigm formulated by James W. Fowler (1981). Fowler posited that during late adolescence and early adulthood, individuals transition from Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional Faith (where identity and beliefs are largely inherited unreflectively from family and peer groups) to Stage 4: Individuative-Reflective Faith. In Stage 4, the adolescent must confront ideological contradictions, demythologize cultural assumptions, and construct an explicit, self-chosen worldview. The WIB was engineered precisely to assess high school seniors and college undergraduates navigating this critical developmental juncture, determining whether their emergent ideological posture converges on traditional religious orthodoxy, secular skepticism, or esoteric mysticism.

2. Gordon Allport’s Religious Orientation Theory

While Gordon Allport‘s seminal distinction between Intrinsic and Extrinsic religious orientation focused on motivation (whether religion is lived as an end in itself or used as a means toward social status), Gill and Thornton extended this perspective into cognitive content. They hypothesized that the psychological benefits traditionally attributed to intrinsic religiosity—such as elevated self-esteem and internal locus of control—are mediated by the subjective cognitive coherence of the belief system itself. Individuals who hold coherent, unconflicted ideological systems (whether orthodox Judeo-Christianity or consistent Secular Humanism) were theorized to exhibit superior psychological integration compared to those harboring fragmented or superstitious orientations.

3. Cognitive Dissonance and Schema Theory

Under Jean Piaget‘s schema theory and Leon Festinger‘s cognitive dissonance theory, worldviews act as overarching cognitive schemas through which ambiguous life events are assimilated and accommodated. A schema that attributes life difficulties to random material processes, demonic influence, divine testing, or astrological cycles produces vastly different coping mechanisms and self-evaluative outcomes. The WIB provides the structural template to map these schemas and assess how cognitive dissonance emerges when individuals endorse contradictory propositions across conflicting domains.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the What I Believe Scale was established through a series of initial empirical investigations focusing on criterion-related, construct, and discriminant validity paradigms.

1. Known-Groups Criterion Validity

To evaluate whether the scale accurately differentiated among distinct ideological cohorts, the developers administered the instrument to pre-identified criterion groups exhibiting strong, explicit commitments to either Judeo-Christian theism, secular humanism, or spiritist/occult practices. The empirical results demonstrated exceptional known-groups validity:

• Subjects recognized by peer and institutional criteria as strongly committed Judeo-Christian adherents achieved near-perfect scores on the Judeo-Christian dimension, while simultaneously registering extremely low scores on the Atheism and Spiritism scales.
• Self-identified secular humanists demonstrated the reverse configuration: high scores on the 25 Atheism items and low scores on both the Judeo-Christian and Spiritism dimensions.
• Individuals actively engaged in esoteric and occult practices scored selectively high on the Spiritism/Occult subscale.

2. Convergent and Discriminant Inter-Scale Correlations

Analyses of inter-scale correlation matrices provided theoretical confirmation of construct validity:

• A statistically significant, robust inverse correlation was documented between the Judeo-Christian Total Score and the Atheism/Secular Humanism Total Score. Because these two systems represent logically incompatible epistemological propositions regarding divine existence and miraculous intervention, this negative association supports the scale’s internal validity.
• The Spiritism/Occult dimension demonstrated a distinct correlational pattern, sharing moderate negative correlations with orthodox theism on items concerning demonic control, while sharing slight positive correlations on items affirming the existence of non-material phenomena. This confirmed that Spiritism operates as a distinct construct rather than a simple inverse of atheism.

3. Construct Validity via Psychological Correlates

Gill and Thornton (1989) examined the relationship between WIB ideological classifications and standardized measures of adolescent self-esteem (e.g., using the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory or Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale). The empirical findings indicated significant variations in global self-esteem across ideological profiles, validating the authors’ hypothesis that metaphysical beliefs are functionally tied to adolescent self-worth and academic engagement.

Reliability

The original psychometric evaluation of the What I Believe Scale focused primarily on temporal stability via test-retest methodology, alongside subsequent analyses of internal consistency across dichotomous response sets.

1. Test-Retest Reliability (Temporal Stability)

In the primary validation study, stability over time was assessed using a subsample of 17 secondary school students who completed the 50-item instrument across a two-week testing interval. The resulting Pearson product-moment stability coefficient was:

r = .79 (p < .001)

A stability coefficient of .79 over a 14-day window demonstrates acceptable temporal stability for an exploratory dichotomous inventory, indicating that adolescent respondents do not alter their self-reported worldview radically over short periods in the absence of severe ideological crisis or targeted educational intervention.

2. Psychometric Considerations for Dichotomous Data

Because the scale utilizes a forced-choice True/False format, traditional Cronbach’s alpha formulas must be interpreted in light of dichotomous item characteristics, where the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) serves as the appropriate internal consistency metric. Subsequent psychometric evaluations of 50-item dichotomous scales of this nature generally yield KR-20 coefficients ranging between .75 and .84 for comprehensive subscales. However, researchers have noted that the modest sample size of the original retest cohort (n = 17) represents an empirical limitation, and contemporary applications warrant larger-sample cross-validation using modern item-level reliability assessments.

Factor Analysis

The structural composition of the What I Believe Scale is grounded in a rational-theoretical item allocation framework, supplemented by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to verify the dimensionality of its item pool.

1. Dimensional Structure

Theoretical extraction reveals three primary underlying latent factors corresponding to the scale’s scoring architecture:

• Factor 1: Transcendent Monotheistic Orthodoxy (Judeo-Christian). Items loading heavily on this factor include declarations of a personal, loving, and just Creator God (Item 18/20), the reality of external supernatural moral agents, the efficacy of prayer as relational communication, and the rejection of cosmic pantheism and occult divination.
• Factor 2: Scientific Naturalism & Secular Rationalism (Atheism). Characterized by robust positive loadings on items affirming that all phenomena can be explained through physical science (Item 4, Item 23), that miracles are myths or scientific misunderstandings (Item 29), and that human potential is entirely self-contained within biological and intellectual limits (Item 13, Item 17).
• Factor 3: Esoteric Animism & Parapsychology (Spiritism/Occult). Items loading on this factor capture beliefs in psychic phenomena (Item 1, Item 7, Item 12), the utilization of occult forces for personal advantage (Item 43), post-mortem discarnate communications (Item 34, Item 38), and talismanic protection (Item 5).

2. Structural Equation and Modern Item Response Theory (IRT) Fit

Under modern structural equation modeling (CFA) and two-parameter logistic (2PL IRT) frameworks, dichotomous worldview inventories typically demonstrate moderate to high item discrimination parameters (a > 1.0) on core items, whereas satellite items exhibit lower discrimination indices (a < 0.65). Confirmatory model evaluations that isolate core foundational statements consistently yield superior goodness-of-fit indices (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] < .06; Comparative Fit Index [CFI] > .90) relative to unidimensional single-factor models, corroborating Gill and Thornton’s original conceptualization of worldviews as discrete, multifaceted structural domains.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

Summary Specifications

• Full Instrument Name: What I Believe Scale (abbreviated as WIB)
• Authors: Newell T. Gill and Larry H. Thornton
• Publication Date: 1988–1989
• Target Population: Secondary school students (grades 11–12), collegiate undergraduates, and emerging adults (ages 16–24)
• Test Format: Standardized, self-administered paper-and-pencil or digital psychological inventory
• Number of Items: 50 statements
• Response Format: Forced-choice dichotomous format: True (A) or False (B)
• Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes

Scoring Key & Computational Protocol

The WIB uses an ideological alignment scoring system. A response is scored as “correct” (aligned) when it matches the predetermined ideological signature of that worldview. Raw alignment totals are subsequently converted into percentage metrics ranging from 0% to 100%.

1. Judeo-Christian Total Score (50 Items Scored)

All 50 items of the inventory are evaluated to calculate the Judeo-Christian score:

• Aligned as Response B (False): Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 48, 49, and 50.
• Aligned as Response A (True): All remaining questionnaire items (e.g., Items 9, 11, 15, 18, 19, 28, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47).
• Mathematical Formula: Judeo-Christian Score = Number of Aligned Items × 2 (Yielding a maximum normalized score of 100).

2. Atheism / Secular Humanism Total Score (25 Items Scored)

Only half (25) of the questionnaire items are scored for this category:

• Aligned as Response A (True): Items 2, 4, 5, 8, 13, 21, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 42, and 48.
• Aligned as Response B (False): Items 7, 10, 11, 18, 28, 32, 34, 45, 46, 47, and 50.
• Mathematical Formula: Atheism Score = Number of Aligned Items × 4 (Yielding a maximum normalized score of 100).

3. Spiritism / Occult Total Score (25 Items Scored)

Only half (25) of the questionnaire items are scored for this category:

• Aligned as Response A (True): Items 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, 20, 24, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 45, 49, and 50.
• Aligned as Response B (False): Items 26 and 44.
• Mathematical Formula: Spiritism Score = Number of Aligned Items × 4 (Yielding a maximum normalized score of 100).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The What I Believe Scale was formally published in late 1989 within The High School Journal (University of North Carolina Press) following initial scholarly presentations at the Florida Educational Research Association meetings in 1988 and 1989. The scale resides in the scholarly public domain for non-commercial academic, psychological, and educational research purposes under standard academic fair-use conventions. Researchers and educational practitioners wishing to administer the WIB within institutional environments or clinical settings generally do not incur licensing fees, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is accorded to the original authors (Gill & Thornton, 1989). For commercial adaptation, digital repository integration, or high-stakes standardized assessment batteries, authorization should be sought from the journal publisher and the intellectual copyright holders.

References

Below is the formal academic documentation and peer-reviewed literature detailing the development, standardization, and empirical findings associated with the What I Believe Scale:

• Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. Harper & Row. https://www.harpercollins.com/
• Gill, N. T., & Thornton, L. H. (1988, November). Religious orientation and self-esteem among college students [Paper presentation]. Annual Meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, Sarasota, FL, United States.
• Gill, N. T., & Thornton, L. H. (1989). Religious orientation and self-esteem among high school students. The High School Journal, 73(1), 47–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40364951
• Thornton, L. H., & Gill, N. T. (1989, November). Consistency of religious beliefs and self-esteem among high school students [Paper presentation]. Annual Meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, Tallahassee, FL, United States.
• Thornton, L. H., & Gill, N. T. (1990, November). Student interest and religious beliefs [Paper presentation]. Annual Meeting of the Florida Educational Research Association, FL, United States.
• Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021212
• Coopersmith, S. (1967). The antecedents of self-esteem. W. H. Freeman & Co.

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)