The Alister Hardy question on religious experience: some evidence for the validity of Bashkirian and Russian translations

ABSTRACT

Previous research on religious experience has employed the Alister Hardy question: “Have you ever been aware of or influenced by a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?” The present study had two aims. The first aim was to introduce the Bashkirian and Russian translations of the Alister Hardy question to facilitate research with the measures among Bashkirian and Russian speakers. No matters of concern were raised during the translation process. The second aim was to present some initial data using the Russian translation of the Alister Hardy question to examine the matter of validity. Data were presented from 15 Russian-speaking respondents recruited from a Russian social media website. Evidence for face validity of the Russian translation of the Alister Hardy question is presented. The Bashkirian and Russian translations of the Alister Hardy question are provided and recommended for us.

KEYWORDS:

• Bashkirian
• religious experience
• Russian
• Alister Hardy question

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Vasily Koltaev and Mikhail Khukhrin for their assistance with this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (RNF) [grant number 15-18-00142].