Construction and validation of an implicit instrument to assess God representations. Part 1: Associations between implicit and explicit God representation and distress measures

ABSTRACT

For adherents of theistic religions, God representations are an important factor in explaining associations between religion/spirituality and well-being/mental health. Because of limitations of self-report measures of God representations, we developed an implicit God representation instrument, the Apperception Test God Representations (ATGR) and examined its reliability and validity. Its scales could be scored reliably and were within a clinical sample associated more strongly than explicit God representation scales with the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. Compared to the ATGR scores of a nonclinical sample, the clinical sample had less complex, positive, and mature God representations, indicating discriminant validity.

KEYWORDS:

• God representations
• implicit instrument
• personality pathology
• object relations
• distress

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The institution still used DSM-IV classifications, because the Dutch translation of the DSM-5 was published in 2014 and officially prescribed by the Dutch government from January the 1, 2017.

Additional information

Funding

This article is part of a PhD study that is granted by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, award number 023.002.115.