Validation of the Polish Version of the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED)

Maria A Świątek,Agata H Świątek,Anna Czaprowska,Małgorzata Szcześniak,Sławomir Bukalski,Hanna Borkowska,Urszula Myszak,Adam Falewicz,Klaudia Strochalska,Zdzisław Kroplewski

doi:10.3390/rel12121049

Maria A Świątek, Agata H Świątek + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12121049

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Abstract

Divine engagement applies to a positive relationship with God in which people feel that God is close to them and answers their prayers. Divine disengagement pertains to an unsteady connection and a sense of God’s absence. Although several questionnaires consider the concerns of the human experience of prayer, only one deals precisely with the subject of the human perception of divine engagement and disengagement in response to one’s prayer. The main goals of the present research were to: (1) determine the latent structure of the Brief Measure of Perceived Divine Engagement and Disengagement in Response to Prayer (PDED) in a sample set; (2) test whether the factor structure indicated by EFA matches the data and provides an equivalent goodness-of-fit index to Exline’s model; and (3) confirm that perceived divine engagement and disengagement are correlated with religious meaning, gratitude to God, and dimensions of religious centrality. The results show that the proposed two-factor structure of the eight-item version of the PDED is a suitable and reliable solution of the original PDED (Study 1). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) revealed a good fit of the data to the model in both the second and third studies. Both dimensions of the PDED correlated significantly with all of the subscales of the RMS, GGQ–6, and CRS–15. The Polish version of the PDED demonstrated very good psychometric properties.

Highlights

In May 2019, Pew Research Center reported the rates of daily prayer across the globe, based on surveys conducted between 2008 and 2017
Since a two-factor structure of the PDED emerged from Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), a corresponding two-factor model was specified, employing the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
The analysis of global fit indices revealed that the model provided a good fit

Summary

Introduction

In May 2019, Pew Research Center reported the rates of daily prayer across the globe, based on surveys conducted between 2008 and 2017. 80% of people from West Africa and some parts of the Middle East declared praying every day. Of people praying), with the U.S considered an outlier among wealthy nations The statistics regarding Poland showed that almost 30% of Poles declare praying daily. These numbers, though varied, confirm that prayer is still an important value across faiths and cultures (Masters and Spielmans 2007), despite the fact that we are witnessing a progressive process of secularization and individualization (Bänziger et al 2008). Prayer plays a key role in human life, both at an individual and a social level (Spilka and Ladd 2013; Friese et al 2014). It is challenging to provide a unique conceptualization of prayer (Chirico et al 2020), it is usually defined as a

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