Abstract
The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) is a 16-item self-report measure designed to assess a set of experiences that may occur in the context of daily life for many different kinds of people. These include awe, a merciful attitude, giving other-centered love, deep inner peace, finding strength, guidance, or consolation from a transcendent source, among others. The DSES includes theistic and non-theistic language and alternatives, and has proven useful for those from many religions and for the unaffiliated. Since its original publication, it has been translated into over 40 languages, used in hundreds of published studies, and adopted for use in many practical settings. Empirically, the DSES predicts greater resilience, stress buffering, post-traumatic growth, and a sense of meaning in the face of illness, trauma, and daily stressors, as well as less substance abuse and burnout. Intervention studies using the DSES show that a variety of interventions can increase the frequency of these experiences. In this article, we will provide a brief overview of the scale and review its use in the empirical literature with respect to resilience and related outcomes. Findings suggest that the experiences measured by the DSES may serve as a resource for those experiencing distress of various kinds.
Highlights
The goal of this paper is to provide a narrative review of empirical studies investigating the relationship between daily spiritual experiences (DSEs), measured by the Daily Spiritual
The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) measures experiences that include those of awe, a merciful attitude, giving other-centered love, receiving compassionate love, finding strength, guidance, or consolation from connection with a transcendent source, a sense of deep inner peace or harmony, a sense of joy that lifts a person above their momentary troubles, a sense of desire for closeness to a divine source in life, and a sense of being blessed even in tough times, among others
This review indicates that scores on the DSES are associated with stress buffering, increased resilience, increased posttraumatic growth or meaning in the face of challenge, and reduced burnout, substance abuse, and addictive behaviors
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The DSES consists of 16 quantitative self-report questions It measures the frequency with which respondents have a variety of experiences that many describe as spiritual (Underwood 2006). Some of the items use the word “God”, the introductory sentences of the DSES encourage participants to substitute for that word language that is applicable to them: “A number of items use the word ‘God’ If this word is not a comfortable one for you, please substitute other words which calls to mind the divine or holy for you”. Measure for Religiousness and Spirituality (BMMRS; Idler et al 2003) This short form correlates highly with the full scale, but because it was developed ad-hoc rather than psychometrically, lacks breadth, and does not usually include the introductory sentences suggesting alternative language, Underwood recommends using the full 16-item scale whenever possible (Underwood 2011). Additional details on the theoretical background, the development and psychometrics of the scale, its applicability across populations, and other versions of the scale, can be found elsewhere (www.dsescale.org, accessed on 6 March 2022; Underwood 2006, 2011; Underwood and Teresi 2002)
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