Calculating Crisis: Development and Validation of the Crisis of Belief Scale (COBS)

Many people experience periods of severe stress or trauma in which they question and rethink their core beliefs about life. This recently conceptualized phenomenon, labeled Crisis of Belief, has been clearly theoretically specified, but has yet to be operationalized. In a series of six studies (total N = 2,739), we developed and validated a psychometric designed to measure this construct, called the Crisis of Belief Scale (COBS). Studies 1 and 2 identified items and used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to test the structure of the COBS. Study 3 measured COBS alongside a variety of variables to assess its convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity. Study 4 assessed its test-retest and split-half reliability. Studies 5 and 6, assessed its known-groups validity by comparing COBS scores in a sample of people experiencing homelessness (Study 5), and people in substance abuse recovery (Study 6), to that of the general population. The results of these studies support the validity of the COBS, which provides a rigorous means of measuring COB and investigating its relationships with key variables, such as depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, posttraumatic growth, and belief change. Importantly, the results indicate that COB predicts variability in key outcomes over and above variability attributable to trauma. The COBS provides a valuable tool for researchers and practitioners to understand how COB relates to well-being outcomes and processes of belief change.