Psychological Reports, 1957, 3 , 293-297. @ Southern Universities Press 1957

AN APPLICATION OF THE Q-TECHNIQUE TO THE STUDY OF RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS

MARVEN 0. NELSON AND EDWARD MORRIS JONES

Holcghtolz College

The scientific investigation of religious problems has frequently been stifled because of the lack of suitable research instruments. Some bold attempts to apply the scientific method to the investigation of problems in this field have met with considerable success, e.g., the classic works of William James (4 j , Starbuck ( 5 j , and Coe ( 2 ) . Sigmund Freud ( 3 ) and a number of other psychoanalysts have provided a great deal of insight into the uncon- scious motives involved in religious experience by use of clinical procedures. Gordon Allport ( 1 ) applied the scientific method to the study of the nature of individual religious experience. In the main, however, most studies seem lacking in specific techniques for obtaining objective data needed in gaining a scientific description of religious factors.

PROBLEM The problem for the present investigation was to study the extent to

which the Q-technique might be adapted as an instrument for the investiga- tion of religious concepts. The specific area of religious concepts selected for investigation was that relating to the idea of God. It had been noted that Freud, on the basis of clinical data, suggested that the God concept is formed by the projection of attitudes and feelings toward one's earthly father into a pattern that could be thought of as a supernatural father, or God (3, p. 91 5 A. ) . This study ettempts to apply an adaptation of the Q-technique to the investigation of certain aspects of Freud's hypothesis.

PROCEDURE Subjects.-The group of Ss used in this investigation was composed of

16 persons of Protestant faith. Among the group were 8 men and 8 women, ranging in age from 18 to 44. Of this number, 15 were between the ages of 18 and 27.3 of the group were married and 13 were single. With the exception of 1 woman 44 years of age, all Ss were students in a church-related college of liberal arts.

Construction of in.struments.-A list of 60 statements was constructed following the pattern of the Q-technique described by Stephenson (6). Each question was so worded that it could be used to complete any one of the following sentences: "When I think of God I . . . . .;" "When I think of Jesus I . . . . .;" "When I think of Father 1 . . . . .;" "When I think of Mother I . . . . ." The statements were designed to describe feelings, ranging from very positive ones to very negative ones, which might be precipitated by

294 M. 0. NELSON & E. M. JONES

the sentences to be completed. The statements included items such as the following: ". . . . . have a feeling that I am understood;" ". . . . . feel this is someone who holds nothing against me;" " . . . . . have a feeling that I am not always accepted;" ". . . . . feel that this is someone who sometimes loves me and sometimes does not love me;" ". . . . . feel that this is someone on whom I can never depend;" and, ". . . . . have a sense of something being held against me." Each statement was typed on a separate 3 x 5 card which was numbered on the reverse side.

Nine spaces to accommodate the 3 x 5 cards were drawn on a 54"X :8" strip of white cardboard. The spaces were assigned values ranging from 0 to 8. The values were written above their respective spaces. At the "0" end of the scale was printed the statement: "Most like I feel," while at the "8" end of the scale was printed the statement: "Least like I feel." Below each of the spaces was placed a number designating the number of cards to be placed in that space. These numbers were arranged to force a normal distribution of cards ranging from the categories 0 to 8, as follows:

Most like I feel Least like I feel

Scale 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 No. of cards 1 2 6 12 18 12 6 2 1

Adnzinistratio?~ of test.-Each S was asked to sort the statements four times, placing them in the appropriate position on the scale. Only the desig- nated number of statements were allowed for each space. During the first sorting an 8"Xb" card bearing the incomplete sentence "When I think of God I . . . . ." was plzced above the scale so that the cards could be sorted as statements completing that sentence. During the second, third, and fourth sortings, the incomplete sentences referring to Father, Jesus, and Mother were respectively used instead of the sentence referring to God.

Statistical treatment.-After each sorting, the position on the scale for each statement was recorded as the score for that statement. The scores were then used to compute product-moment correlations for six pairs of factors formed by pairing each of the four sortings of statements with each of the other sortings.

In order to discover the degree to which negative or positive feelings were expressed toward Father and Mother, the statements were separated into three groups of 20 statements, each representing those considered by the Es to be expressions of positive, negative, neutral, or ambivalent feelings, re- spectively. By placing all of the positive statements at the "Most like I feel" end of the scale and the negative statements at the "Least like I feel" end, the cards with positive statements would obtain a score of 47 and the ones with negative statements a score of 113. By ascertaining the algebraic sum of the scores obtained by the two groups of cards, after having assigned nega- tive and positive values to the two scores respectively, a feeling or "F-index"

Q-TECHNIQUE AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS 295

was obtained which was used to group the Ss in terms of preference for Father or Mother.

In treating the results obtained by correlating the paired factors for each S, the coefficients of correlation for all Ss were averaged so that a composite picture of the 16 Ss could be obtained in terms of an r for each of the paired factors. The 16 Ss were then grouped according to sex to compare male and female rs and according to F-index preference for Father and Mother. Group means were obtained for the rs of each pair of factors for each of the groups. The rs for each of the 16 Ss appear in Table I along with the means for all cases and for the sub-groups.

TABLE 1 PRODUCT MOMENT COEFFICIENTS OF CORRELATION FOR PAIRED CONCEPTS:

GOD- JESUS, MOTHER-FATHER, GOD-FATHER, GOD-MOTHER, FATHER- JESUS, AND MOTHER-JESUS

Case Age Sex Parent No. Pref. G-J M-F G-F G-M F-J M-J 101 21 M M .95" .47" .29"" .47 * .22 .54" 102 18 F N -51" .14 -.I1 -.05 -04 -.44" 103 21 M M .84" -.63" ---51" .66* -.53" .70" 104 24 M M .84" .21 -.25 .43" -.06 -54" 105 20 M M .73" -.67* -.61" .56* -.57* .54* 106 21 F N .94" .74" .76* 39: *

-74" .8Sx 107 20 F N .34" .63" .42 * .3 1 .69" .44" 108 22 M N .48* .63* .72 * .68" .36" .46* 109 27 F F .78" -.34" -.64" .37* .75' .42 " 110 19 F M .74" .31xx .42" .78 * .55* .54* 111 18 F N .86' .81x .67" .77 ' .80X .65 " 112 23 M N .51* .42" -38 " .14 .5SX .25 113 44 F F .48* .07 .26"* .55* .45* .33" 114 20 M M .54" -31"" .26*+ .26"" .34" .20 115 25 F N .57" .60" -.20 .31x" .33" .32"" 116 22 M F .52" -.09 .GOx -.29"* .61x -.31f" Mean rs for all cases .664* .225 .I53 .427" .331x .378" Means for sub-groups:

Males ,676" .081 . l l .363" .I18 .365" Females .652" .37" .I97 .491" .543" .392* Prefer Father (F ) .593" -.I2 .073 -2 1 .603* .I46 Prefer Mother (M) .773" .000 -.066 .526" .008 .510* No Preference (N) -60" .567" .377* .435" .505" .365"

df, 58; 5 % level of confidence: .255; 1 a/o level of confidence: .330. *Significant at 1 % level; * "significant at 5 % level.

RESULTS The results showed the mean r for the pair "God-Jesus" to be positive

and well above the 1% level of confidence, the rs for individuals ranging from .34 to .95. Thus, while God and Jesus seemed to precipitate similar feelings in most cases, some persons appeared to differentiate between the two.

The rs for Mother-Father ranged from -.67 to .81 with the mean for the entire group being -225, falling below the 5 % level of confidence. This

296 M. 0. NELSON & E. M. JONES

suggests rhat several persons experienced contrasting feelings toward Mother and Father while only a few experienced feelings that were the same or similar toward the two.

The correlations between God and Father showed individual rs ranging from -.64 to .76, with the mean for the group being .153, well below the 5 % level of confidence. The rs for Mother-God were somewhat more con- sistent, though the range for individuals was from -.29 to .89, the mean for the group being .427 which is well above the 1% level of confidence. Thus, for the group, the r for Mother and God is much higher than that for Father and God.

While the range of rs for Father-Jesus was from -.57 to .80, the mean for the group was .331, slightly above the 1% level of confidence. Thus, for the group, the feelings regarding Father were somewhat more like those re- garding Jesus than like those regarding God. The rs for Mother-Jesus, on the other hand, were slightly lower than between Mother-God, though in both cases they were positive and well above the 1% level of confidence.

When Ss were divided on the basis of sex and attitudes toward Father and Mother by use of the F-index as shown in Table 1, quite a different pattern of mean rs was obtained.

The mean rs for the 8 male Ss, on the Mother-Father, Father-God, and Father-Jesus factors dropped to a level approaching zero correlation, while the rs for Mother-God and Mother-Jesus remained positive and above the 1% level of confidence. For the 8 female Ss, the rs for God-Jesus, Mother- Father, God-Mother, Father-Jesus, and Mother-Jesus were all positive and well above the 1% level of confidence. The r for God-Father was positive, but below the 5% level of confidence.

By use of the F-index, the 16 Ss were divided into 3 groups: those who preferred Father, those who preferred Mother, and those who had no prefer- ence or were ambivalent toward both parents. The mean rs were obtained for each of these groups, although the number of Ss in each group was very small. The results were as follows.

For those who preferred Father only 2 pairs showed rs above the 5% level of confidence. These were God-Jesus and Father-Jesus, both of which were above the 1% level of confidence. For those who preferred Mother, the God-Jesus, God-Mother, and Mother-Jesus pairs showed rs which were posi- tive and above the 1% level of confidence. The other rs for this group were npproximately zero. For the 6 Ss who showed no F-index preference for Father or Mother all mean rs were positive and well above the 1% level of confidence.

DISCUSSION While the number of Ss in this investigation was too small to warrant

drawing any conclusions about the relationship between the various concepts correlated, so far as the group means were concerned, some trends were noted.

Q-TECHNIQUE AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS 297

In the total-group means as well as in the means for the sub-groups the God concept had a higher positive correlation with the Mother concept than with the Father concept. In all groups but one, the concepts God-Father showed rs below the 5% level of confidence. This one group was made up of those who showed no F-index preference for either Father or Mother. The Mother- Jesus concepts for all groupings had mean rs which were positive and above the 1% level of confidence. Should these trends be confirmed by a larger number of cases, it would appear that the Mother concept is more influential in the formation of the deity concepts than is the Father concept, except where the concepts of Father and Mother indicate no preference between the two.

On the basis of the trends indicated by the data of this investigation, it appears that the adaptation of the Q-technique used may have some value for further investigation of religious concepts.

An adaptation of the Q-technique was applied to the study of the Chris- tian deity concepts of God and Jesus as compared with the parent concepts of Mother and Father. The correlations obtained for 16 Ss indicated: ( a ) that the deity concepts were more closely related to the Mother concept than to the Father concept for Ss investigated; and ( b ) that the adaptation of the Q-techniq~ie used may have value for further study of religious concepts.

REFERENCES 1. ALLPORT, G. W. T h e individual and his religion. New York: Macmillan, 1950. 2. COE, G. A. T h e spiritual l i fe . New York: Eaton & Mains, 1900. 3. FREUD, S. T o t e m and taboo. In T h e basic writings o f Sigmund Freud. New York:

Modern Library, 1938. 4. JAMES, W. T h e varieties o f religious experience. New York: Longmans, Green,

1902. 5. STARBUCK, E. D. T h e psychology o f religion. New York: Scribner, 1901. 6. STEPHENSON, W. T h e study of behavior: Q-technique and its nzethodology. Chicago:

Univer. of Chicago, 1953.

Accepted April 12, 1957.