‘THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION, 5(1), 49-60 Copyright © 1995, Lawsence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. RESEARCH REPORT Studying Dimensions of God Representation: Choosing Closed or Open-Ended Research Questions D. Hutsebaut and D. Verhoeven Centrum voor Godsdienstpsychologie Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium God representation was studied by means of a questionnaire and by means of an open-ended question in a representative sample of students at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Data were analyzed for the two approaches by means of factor analysis and cluster analysis. Comparison of the two methods indicates that the answer structure of the two data sets is similar, but that the item list gave a somewhat better prediction of the answer to the open-ended question than vice versa, Matters concerning the dimensions of a religious attitude and a representa tion of God are at the center of longstanding debates in the psychology and sociology of religion. We refer to the model of Glock and Stark (1965), with their well-known five dimensions: ideological, ritual, experiential, conse- quential, and intellectual; the model of King and Hunt (1975), with nine dimensions; the model of Fukuyama (1961), with four dimensions; the old model of Broen (1957), with two; the studies of Spilka, Armatas, and Nussbaum (1964), with 10 or 12 factors of a God representation; and the debate of Allport and Ross (1967), concerning an intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. We also think of the critique of Clayton (1971), concerning the Requests for reprints should be sent to D. Hutsebaut and D. Verhoeven, Centrum voor Godsdienstpsychologie, Katholieke Universiteit en Pedagogische Wetenschappen, Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.50 GOD REPRESENTATION multidimensionality of the religious attitude. Many more models have been developed, distinguishing among different possible dimensions of religion and religiosity. (For an overview, see Brown, 1987; Spilka, Hood, & Gorsuch, 1985; Wulff, 1991). The purpose of this article, however, is certainly not to repeat the discussion of fundamental dimensions in religion. We limit our approach to God represen- tation, an old and important topic in the psychology of religion, certainly in the Leuven tradition (Hutsebaut & Corveleyn, 1987; Hutsebaut & Verhoeven, 1991). We present the results of a study on God representation that combined two ways of operationalizing this concept: first, by means of an item list and second, by the analysis of answers to an open-ended question. If we present items to subjects, this list is necessarily limited with regard to the universe of possible items that could be presented to them. As a function of previous research, of the subjects’ thinking and theory formation about God, and of time and space limitations, researchers present a restricted set of items. During most analyses, items are eliminated in order to form some factors. The subject also makes a choice within the possible items to express his or her representation of God. The subject has, however, only a limited number of possibilities at his or her disposal to express his or her approval of the items (e.g., a score between 1 and 5). When the item list consists of more than five items, it becomes impossible to rank the items according to the degree of approval. In presenting an open-ended question to the subjects, we grant the possi- bility of “freely” formulating answers, inspired by their own thinking about God, using elements of the religious tradition of the subjects. But here, there is also a limited possibility, as the subjects may not give all the possible answers they have in mind concerning God. It could be that they do not have the language in mind to express their feelings and thoughts about God, and this is also a restriction in answering the question. It could also be for such earthly reasons as a lack of time or space. In this article, we discuss the results of each of the two approaches, compare the outcomes, and examine the extent to which the two sets of data deriving from closed and open formats lead to the same or complementary findings. In that way, it may be possible to decide which is the most ecolog- ical way of working in further research. SAMPLE FROM A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS (1991) In this study, the sample was representative of the student population (about 25,000 students) at the Katholicke Universiteit Leuven. Of the 1,438 sub- jects (2,000 questionnaires were mailed), 51.6% were men, and 48.4% were women; 37.2% were 19 or younger, 32.3% were between 20 and 21, and 30.5% were older than 21 (until about 25).HUTSEBAUT AND VERHOEVEN 51 ‘We also asked the subjects to supply a religious self-definition. In re- sponse to this, 33.6% called themselves believers, 19% Catholic, 20.5% Christian, 5.3% agnostic, 9.2% unbeliever, 1.6% convinced atheist, and 4.9% humanist; 0.2% belonged to other religious convictions, and 7.2% did not answer. We investigated belief in the existence of God in more detail. In this case, 20.9% identified with “absolute believer,” 46.9% with “believer with some questions,” 8.9% with “doubting about the existence of God,” 11.2% had a “tendency toward unbelief,” 6.2% identified with “unbeliever,” and 5.1% called themselves “agnostic”; 1.3% gave no answer. From this, 67.8% of the sample can be considered believers, only 8% doubters, and 17.4% mostly unbelievers. Note that the question was formu- lated in terms of belief in God or some transcendent reality. With regard to the religious practice of the subjects (Sunday mass attendance, because of the Catholic dominance in Belgium), 29.6% claimed to practice weekly, 9.9% claimed several times a month, 4.1% claimed once a month, 12.7% claimed to rarely practice, 12.4% claimed to practice only on major moments (e.g., Christmas, etc.), and 29.2% claimed not to practice at all. Note that this religious practice rate is certainly higher than that for comparable age groups outside the Katholieke Universiteit, where we can estimate that 18% report regular practice (Kerkhofs, Dobbelaere, Voyé, Bawin-Legros, 1992). Students in this sample came from the different faculties of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven: 1.8% from Theology, Philosophy, and Church Law (taken together); 12.6% from Law; 19.4% from Economics; 5.0% from Social Sciences; 13.7% from Medicins % from Pharmacy; 3.6% from Physical Education and Physical Rehabilitation; 7.8% from Lan- guages; 8.8% from Psychology and Educational Sciences; 7.7% from Posi- tive Sciences; 12.7% from Applied Sciences; and 4.5% from Agriculture. With regard to educational background, 58.6% of the students had done a secondary school education with Latin, Greek, sciences, mathematics, or some combination of these fields (i.e., humanities); 20.1% did sciences or economics; and only 1.2% did some kind of technical education. In general, the educational level of the subjects was rather high to very high. Socioeconomic status of the subjects was indicated by the profession of the father: 30% of the fathers were at the higher professional level, 35% were office workers or teachers, 8% were skilled laborers, 9% were independent workers, 8% were ill or retired, 6% were unskilled laborers, and 3% were farmers. The majority of the students had fathers with rather high or very high professional and social positions. SCALE CONSTRUCTION Presented to the subjects was a list of 53 items, based on the scale by Vercruysse (1972) and on material gathered during other studies (Van De Putte, 1990); subjects responded using a 5-point, Likert-type scale. This list was only a52 GOD REPRESENTATION small part of a very long battery of scales (the questionnaire totaled 44 pages)." The structure of the scale was analyzed from a theological viewpoint and an empirical viewpoint. The theological model contained 10 categories con- structed on the basis of three dimensions: (a) a personal versus an impersonal representation of God (God is a person vs. God is an anonymous power), (b) deductive versus inductive (on the basis of theological reflection vs. on the basis of personal experience), (c) a transcendent versus an immanent God representation (a high transcendent God vs. a God present in and between human beings). The first two dimensions are dichotomous, but the third one has three parts: absolutely transcendent, transcendent-immanent, and abso- lutely immanent. The more empirical model contained seven underlying dimensions, more connotatively defined as (a) relation to God, (b) God in relation to love and friendship, (c) a liberating God, (d) it is difficult to give a description of God, (e) God as a creator at the origin and at the end of life, (f) a higher power transcending the visible, and (g) God as a judge about good and evil, with a reward in the life after death. For the total group of subjects, a factor analysis with promax rotation yielded six factors with eigenvalues greater than one. But there were some problems in the interpretation of some factors. If we did the same analysis for the three different belief groups (believers, doubters, unbelievers), we saw changes in the position of some items, which means that the meaning of an item changed as a function of the belief position of a subject. It was also obvious that the believers gave more factors for the more “positive” relations to God, and the unbelievers and still more of the doubters gave more factors in the more vague, unpersonal, and more nominalistic descriptions of God. To give a more interpretable model for the total group, we took only those items that were present on the same factor for the different belief groups and in the solution for the total sample. After doing so, we had seven dimensions, with a total of 32 items. We analyzed the data with these seven dimensions even though they were not present as seven different factors in any of the belief groups or in the total group. DIMENSIONS IN THE GOD REPRESENTATION The factors presented here are those of the solution for the total sample. For the total group, 57.3% of the variance is explained, and 49.6%, 51.8%, and 55.2% is explained for the believers, doubters, and unbelievers, respectively (see Table 1). "This research was done in cooperation with a research group at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.HUTSEBAUT AND VERHOEVEN 53. TABLE 1 Factor Solution for the Total Group and in Function of Belief Groups Factor Believers _Doubters _Unbelievers Total Group Relation to God 1 1 u 1 Creation u m Vv 1 In Nature 1 m m 0 ‘Symbol for Love and the Good Vv u I 1 Judge m Vv v IV Positive Power v Vv m v Difficult to Describe vi vI m1 vi ‘Note. The roman numbers in the table are an indication of the order of extraction of the factors in the different groups. The first factor, Relation to God, indicates a relation between the subject and God. For example, subjects indicaterd that God understands everything, God listens, God sustains in difficult times, God is a very good friend. In most of the responses here, God is seen as a person, but also as a power that sustains and helps the subject. The second and third factors can be interpreted as the dimensions Creation and In Nature. The creator is a personal Creator, a higher power at the origin of the world, or a relational basis for all that is. The third factor, God in relation to nature, is central, and this again is in either a more personal way or impersonal manner, The items for the creator and in nature dimensions are on the same factor, except for the unbelievers, where the dimension of in nature goes together with a more general and more vague representation of God. The fourth factor contains items that are related to God as the Symbol for Love and the Good between people. The items give a more reductive mean- ing of God, who is seen as only a symbol or a name and nothing more than merely an internal power. For the group of unbelievers, this is the first extracted factor. In the fifth factor, Judge, appears the more traditional representation of God as an almighty and all-knowing but just judge, who rewards the good and punishes the bad. The God who is governing our behavior is also present in this factor. The sixth factor, Positive Power, indicates a power that transcends, but also influences. We believe that the connotative meaning of these items is positive, that God has a positive orienting influence on human life. The seventh factor, Difficult to Describe, refers to a God who is difficult to understand and to describe; God is seen as something that is unknown. This factor seems very similar to the previous one, but the connotation seems clearly negative. For the group of unbelievers, these items cluster together with the items of Factor 6 and the items of God’s presence In Nature (Factor 3). If we compare the observed factor structure with the theoretical theologi- cal presupposition, we see very clearly that this theological understanding of the items is not the understanding of the subject. Deductive and inductive54 GOD REPRESENTATION TABLE 2 Importance of Different Categories and Reliability of the Factors Factor % M N Relation 95 2.84 1,415 Creation 83 2.86 1,415 In Nature 82 2.83 1,408 ‘Symbol for the Love and the Good = 77 3.12 1418 Judge 83 2.29 1,407 Positive Power 19 3.10 1,408 Difficult to Describe 1,406 items cluster together, and the personal and impersonal are mixed. Only the distinction between immanent and transcendent seems relevant in the mean- ing of the subject. The lack of fit between the theological model and the factor solution questions the relevance of classical theological categories in social research. Also, the more empirical model does not fit very well. The liberating God is absent in the structure, the God related to human love is not understood as it was presented, and God is seen as nothing more than a symbol of the good in humanity. The God who is transcending the visible and present in nature is present in two factors and related to the dimension of creator. The way that the subjects answered the questions seems to be more conno- tative and organized around several themes. It also seems that the more theological distinctions are not understood and perceived by the subjects. God is related to some categories, but not defined in theological categories. The reason may be that students of this generation have not learned these catego- ries in catechetical instruction. This brings us to ask, What is the relevance of classical theological categories for future psychological studies? The reliability of the different dimensions, except for the last one, is rather good (see Table 2). For two dimensions—God as a symbol for the love and the good and God as a Positive Power—the mean score is slightly above the theoretical mean of 3. For the judge dimension, the mean score is clearly lower than the theoretical mean. ANALYSIS OF THE OPEN-ENDED QUESTION Before presenting the 53 items to the subjects, we asked them an open-ended question: What is the meaning of God for you? We made it clear to the subjects that the purpose of the question was not to show their knowledge of God, but rather to explain their personal view of God. We analyzed the answers by ordering them in post hoc categories. This categorization is strictly empirical, based on the meaning expressed by the subjects, instead of using theological categories. Short descriptions of the categories and exam-HUTSEBAUT AND VERHOEVEN 55, ples of answers follow. Note that each category was divided into subcategor- ies, but it is impossible to present these here. DuUsRw PRESENTATION OF THE CATEGORIES . Relation. The basic meaning of the answer is a relation to a personal God. God is somebody with whom you can talk; He is a friend, a father, a support; He loves you, is near to you, is a compassionate God; the subject thanks Him for the good things in life; He forgives us. . A positive power, A fundamental stimulating power; a power who brings people together; He helps me to do the good; He is an orienta- tion in life. . Ahigher reality. A perfect entity; cosmic power; source of energy. . Life after death. After death, God cares for you; we return to God. . Meaning. Life has a meaning, thus there must be something more. . Creation. Somebody or something at the beginning of life; a higher power who moves the world; creator of the world. He must be there as the explanation of everything. . Transcendency. Great; cannot be represented; higher dimension; mystery. All powerful; all knowing; can communicate with everybody at the same time. He controls us; God is the one who judges finally. . The negative attitude toward the church. The church is materialistic. Critical remarks about the Pope. Christian values are more important than the mass attendance; helping others is more important than going to the church. ). Positive attitude toward the church. We can find God in a good celebration. . Immanent. God is present in everything; God “is” the beautiful things; God is present in justice and love; God is the power in me, the deepest dimension of my life. . Horizontal-innerworldly. To be good for the other; the good things in my life. . Ethical qualifications. The ideal of the good; the highest ethical principle; the way of life of Jesus is an example; my moral standards. . Vague connotations. I can’t understand this higher power; some- thing or somebody who is there, but without any possible representa- tion; everything we can’t explain; an experience; a feeling. . Agnosticism. Many questions about God; we can’t know God; I don’t have any idea. . Denial of Christian contents. God is certainly not a person; God is not the creator. . Unbelief. I don’t believe in God; God is an invention of people; I don’t need a God to be happy.56 GOD REPRESENTATION TABLE 3 of the Answers Over the Total Sample Category % Sample Category % Sample 1. Relation 30.1 9. Positive attitude toward the Church 23 2. Positive power 16.6 10. Immanent 148 3. Higher reality 70 11. Horizontal-innerworldly ad 4. Life after death 36 12. Ethical qualifications 126 5. Meaning 24 13. Vague connotations 20.5 6. Creation 113 14. Agnosticism 126 7, Transcendency 19.4 15, Denial of Christian contents 13.6 8, Negative attitude 16. Unbelief 13.5 toward the Church 98 RESULTS The frequencies of the different categories are shown in Table 3. The catego- ties of relation, transcendency, and vague connotations were mentioned by about 20% or more of the subjects. Between 10% and 20% of the subjects belonged to the categories as positive power, creator, immanent, ethical qualifications, agnosticism, denial of Christian elements, and unbelief. Least of all were those responses grouped under the categories of a higher reality, life after death, meaning, negative attitude toward the church, positive attitude toward the church, and horizontal-innerworldly. Note that Categories 1 and 7 are very classic categories in the language about God in the Judeo-Christian tradition. After these categories, however, we see a very clear questioning of God and very general and vague descrip- tions of that concept, For many subjects, God is no longer a clear concept. It is certainly remarkable that the category of God as creator is scored very low, and that is certainly one of the most used categories in the Judeo- Christian tradition, from which most of the students come. CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF THE DATA To bring some structure to the subjects’ answers, we clustered (Ward Hierar- chical) the data. Eleven clusters became apparent. These were regrouped to form six higher-level clusters. Short descriptions of the 11 original clusters and of the six higher-level clusters follow. The first original cluster, vague descriptions with some elements of im- manency and denial of Christian contents, accounted for 74 subjects. The second cluster, vague descriptions, accounted for 161 subjects; the third cluster, denial of Christian contents, accounted for 112 subjects. These three clusters were grouped together to form the first higher-level cluster, whichHUTSEBAUT AND VERHOEVEN 57, accounted for 347 subjects (27.4% of the sample). The fourth original cluster (also the second higher-level cluster), immanency, accounted for 102 sub- jects (8.1% of the sample). The fifth cluster, horizontal-innerworldly, ac- counted for 90 subjects (7.1%). The sixth cluster, negative attitude toward the church, combined with answers from the agnosticism and higher reality categories, accounted for 64 subjects (5.1% of the sample). The fifth and sixth original clusters grouped to form the third higher-level cluster, which accounted for 154 subjects (12.2% of the sample). The seventh original cluster, relation, accounted for 172 subjects (13.6%); the eighth cluster, life after death, accounted for 57 subjects (4.5%). Together, the seventh and eighth original clusters grouped to form the fourth higher-level cluster, accounting for 229 subjects (18.1%). The ninth original cluster (also the fifth higher-level cluster), transcendency, accounted for 180 subjects (14.2% of the sample). The 10th original cluster, agnosticism, accounted for 127 sub- jects (10.0%); the 11th original cluster, unbelief, accounted for 125 subjects (10.0%). The 10th and 11th original clusters grouped to form the final higher-level cluster, which accounted for 252 subjects (19.9% of the sample). RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ANSWERS ON THE SCALE AND THE ANSWERS ON THE OPEN-ENDED QUESTION To compare the cluster solution for the answers to the open-ended question and the data of the item list, we clustered the subjects based on their answers to the item list. Six groups of subjects arose and are briefly described here. The first cluster contained subjects (N = 324, or 25.6%) whose answers were in the creation, nature, and something vague dimensions. The second cluster contained subjects (N = 240, or 18.9%) whose answers were in the relation dimension, which included answers about the love and friendship of God and the good in the human beings. The third cluster contained subjects (N = 250, or 19.8%) whose answers were in the relation and creator dimen- sions. The fourth cluster contained subjects (NV = 252, or 19.9%) whose answers were in the vague connotations dimension, as well as some that were in the relation dimension, The fifth cluster contained subjects (N = 86, or 6.8%) whose answers were in the positive attitude toward the church dimen- sion. The last cluster contained subjects (N = 112, or 8.8%) whose answers were in the denial of a representation of God dimension. Table 4 contains the chi-square values of the comparison between the clustering as a function of the answers to the open-ended question and as a function of the item list data. The chi-square is very significant, x7(25, N = 1,264) = 600.613, p = 0.000. The sample size is different because of some missing answers on one or both of the questions.58 GOD REPRESENTATION TABLE 4 Comparison of the Item List (IL) and Open-Ended Question (0Q) Approaches Cluster ILI 2 IL3 IL4 LS IL6 N og! 109 67 58 87 20 6 347 8.62 5.30 459 6s 158 oe 27.48 0Q2 28 26 19 20 9 0 102 2.22 2,06 1.50 1.58 O71 0,00 8.07 0Q3 46 33 15 33 20 7 154 3.64 2.61 1.19 2.61 se alse 12.18 0Q4 30 84 92 2 He 1 229 2.37 6.65 7.28 1.66 0.08 0.08 18.12 0Qs 70 23 59 23 1 4 180 5.54 1.82 4.61 Le 0.08 032 14.24 096 41 1 1 68 35 94 252 3.24 0.55 0.55 5.38 2.77 7.44 19.94 N 324 240 250 252 86 112 1,264 25.63 18.99 19.78 19.94 6.80 8.86 100.00 Note. The first number in each cell is the frequency. All percentages (the second number in each cell) are calculated on the total group. DISCUSSION ‘We now turn to comments concerning the matrix employed in our proce- dures. When we looked at the responses to the open-ended question, we saw that they corresponded to the subjects’ item list answers. Subjects whose response to the open-ended question fell into the vague connotations dimension also emerged from the item list analysis as vague. Here God was only related to nature and creation. Although some elements of relation were still present, the subjects had difficulties giving descrip- tions. However, very few of the answers belonged to the denial dimension (ie., having a vague representation of God was not the same as a denial of God). This illustrates the importance of the lack of language skills that the youngsters had in talking about God; it is not to say that a subject who is unable to say something about God is an unbeliever. Subjects with an immanent God representation were equally distributed over the different factors of the item list, with the exception of the denial dimension, where they were underrepresented. Subjects with answers in the horizontal-innerworldly category were also distributed over the different categories of the item list, with more answers in the love and friendship category and underrepresentation in the relation and creator category. These categories were more difficult to trace by means of an item list.HUTSEBAUT AND VERHOEVEN 59 Subjects who mostly referred to God in relational terms in their answers to the open-ended question formulated their answers on the item list in terms of relation and were underrepresented in all the other categories. The sub- jects with answers in the transcendent category were more present in the ‘vague connotations and nature/creator categories and in the relation/creator category, but were underrepresented in the others. The subjects in the nega- tive attitude toward the church, agnosticism, and doubt category were very present in the denial and the difficult to describe categories, but were also present in the good, love, and friendship category, but very underrepresented in the other ones. Clearly, there was an overlap between the two ways of deciphering the subjects’ representations of God. The two ways of approach gave rather similar and overlapping answer structures. The item list gave a somewhat better prediction of the answer to the open-ended question than the open- ended question gave to the item list (A 0.17 > 0.12, symmetric 4 = 0.145). That the lambdas are rather low does not contradict our interpretation. They only indicate that there is not a full fit between the two approaches, but they do not take into account the fact that a number of subjects fell into theoreti- cally adjacent cells, which, although there is no perfect overlap, clearly show more affinity with one open-ended question cluster than with the other ones. Note that within the possible field of answers, and in the item list and in the open-ended question, subjects chose their way of expressing their God representation. We suggest that, in terms of ecological research, the item list gives a good approach to the God representation, but in order to give the subjects the freedom to express their own representations (that will, perhaps, be very similar to the answers to the item list), an open-ended question is recommended. This makes it possible for each subject to express his or her own answer without feeling restrained by the possibilities offered, imposed, or predetermined by the researcher. 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