“As a Shepherd Divideth his Sheep from the Goats”: Does the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale Encapsulate Separable Theistic and Civility Components?

Numerous studies suggest spirituality and subjective well-being (SWB) are positively associated. However, critics argue that
popular spirituality instruments—including the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES)—contain items that conflate religiosity/spirituality
(R/S), prosociality and SWB. Advocates of the DSES retort that, despite this concern, the available evidence confirms a single
underlying factor. The current paper evaluates the DSES’s development, factor structure, reliability and convergent and predictive
validity using a community sample. Despite the full DSES scale’s excellent internal reliability, two related factors—theism
and civility—are identified. Both scales are reliable and converge meaningfully with related R/S measures. As expected, given
previous findings, the full DSES scale predicts higher SWB yet the two subscales display divergent associations. This finding
offers new insights into the DSES and raises questions about the claimed belief-as-benefit effect.