Enhancing the Focus of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale-Introducing the SIBS-R2: Results from Canada and the USA.

The Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale-Revised (SIBS-R) is a popular measure of spirituality. Nevertheless, some items on the SIBS-R measure constructs other than spirituality (e.g., well-being), which undermines the validity of the SIBS-R as a measure of spirituality. In light of this, a new version of the SIBS-R, the SIBS-R2, was created. The SIBS-R2 consists of eight items from the SIBS-R that are not confounded with other constructs such as well-being. The SIBS-R2 was validated in two samples of university students, US (n = 153-433) and Canada (n = 214-273). Participants in these studies completed the SIBS-R, and they completed measures of religiosity (intrinsic, extrinsic, and religion as quest), personality (the Big Five and self-focused attention), and well-being (self-esteem, depression, and satisfaction with life). The SIBS-R2 was reliable in both samples (α = 0.92, US and 0.91, CA), and factor analyses found that the single-factor structures in the two samples were similar. Regression analyses found that the SIBS-R2 was positively related to intrinsic religiosity and was not significantly related to personal and social extrinsic religiosity nor to religion as quest. SIBS-R2 scores were positively correlated with satisfaction with life, self-esteem, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and reflection, and was negatively correlated with rumination, although these relationships were not strong and varied slightly between the two samples. These results suggest that the SIBS-R2 is a measure of spirituality that is not meaningfully contaminated with personality, self-focused attention, and some aspects of well-being. Furthermore, a brief, three-item version of the SIBS-R2 was proposed.