Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 25, 2025

Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
Centers of value and the quest for meaning in faith development: A measurement approach
Suzanne T Mallery1, Paul Mallery1
1Department of Psychology, La Sierra University, Riverside, CA, United States.
Abstract:
James Fowler's model of faith development conceptualized "faith" as the quest for and maintenance of meaning oriented around centers of value which may or may not be religious or spiritual in nature. Although this model foreshadowed later work in meaning in life, substantial bodies of literature have developed in each area, almost entirely independently of the other. Integration has been hindered by measurement difficulties in faith development work. Fowler's stages of faith development and their reformulation as Streib's religious styles are usually measured through either a lengthy Faith Development Interview or short measures that do not assess the breadth of domains covered in the interview. These short measures are in many cases oriented around religious faith and impossible for a non-believer to answer. Embedded within the original model and the interview are aspects of faith development including perspective taking, social horizon, morality, locus of authority, form of world coherence, and symbolic function. A new Centers of Value and Quest for Meaning Scale is proposed to assess the aspects, allow non-believers to respond, tap centers of value that are not religious, and eventually address the theoretical assumption of structural wholeness across aspects. In a series of exploratory factor analyses, factors for each adult stage/style emerged for most of the aspects. This supports the potential importance of assessing the aspects and allows for more than one methodology to assess them.
Related Concept Videos
Humanistic Psychology
This approach...
Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification
Measurement: Derived Units
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Stress Prevention and Stress Management Techniques VI
Motivation and Self-Determination
Motivation, the driving force behind behavior, plays a pivotal role at every stage of the change process. The research...
Uncertainty in Measurement: Accuracy and Precision

