Introduction
Supernatural beliefs are beliefs in things that do not and cannot exist to the best of scientific knowledge, but which appear real to believers. Examples are the belief in god, angels, daemons, reincarnation, ghosts, and mind-body dualism.
| People who believe in supernatural things are not necessarily following a specific religion. Some people believe, for example, just that there is a bigger power "out there" or in reincarnation. |
The short supernatural belief scale quantifies the degree to which people hold supernatural beliefs (Jong et al., 2013).
The SBS scale runs from -4 to 4. In a study with undergraduate psychology students, self-declared atheists scored surprisingly only -2.35, non-religious students -1.15, and religious participants 1.51.
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Legal stuff
The SBS-10 can be used for research, but you need to acknowledge the authors and their research paper (Jong et al., 2013).
Technically
This is a simple scale question. Make sure you keep the order of the items fixed (i.e., do not use the o: random option).
The survey code for PsyToolkit
scale: agree
- {score=-4} strongly disagree
- {score=-3} .
- {score=-2} .
- {score=-1} .
- {score=0} neither agree nor disagree
- {score=1} .
- {score=2} .
- {score=3} .
- {score=4} strongly agree
l: sbs
t: scale agree
o: width 20%
q: Please indicate your agreement with the following statements<br>
Note: The scale runs from strongly disagree to strongly agree, you need to choose the level agreement that matches your personal beliefs.<br>
- There exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, loving God.
- There exists an evil personal spiritual being, whom we might call the Devil.
- There exist good personal spiritual beings, whom we might call angels.
- There exist evil, personal spiritual beings, whom we might call demons.
- Human beings have immaterial, immortal souls.
- There is a spiritual realm besides the physical one.
- Some people will be rewarded in an afterlife when they die.
- Some people will be punished in an afterlife when they die.
- Miracles—divinely-caused events that have no natural explanation—can and do happen.
- There are individuals who are messengers of God and/or can foresee the future.
l: score
t: set
- mean $sbs
l: feedback
t: info
q: The supernatural belief scale has a possible range from -4 (no supernatural beliefs at all) to 4
(strong supernatural beliefs).<br>
Your score on the supernatural belief scale is {$score}.<br>
References
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Jong, J., Bluemke, M., & Halberstadt, J. (2013). Fear of death and supernatural beliefs: Developing a new supernatural belief scale to test the relationship. European Journal of Personality, 27, 495-506.