Development and validation of instruments to assess spiritual capital

Social capital is defined as resources available to individuals by virtue of their affiliation and/or participation in social networks. Faith communities where people gather for worship are an important source of social capital in the US. This is particularly true in the African American community. The type of social capital generated by religious groups (e.g., spiritual capital) is important for the health and well-being of the members. The issue for research is that there are few if any validated instruments available to assess spiritual capital, as a construct unique from religious participation, spiritual experience, or spiritual support. This is compounded by the challenging issue of the core construct of social capital, which suffers from poor operationalization. The present study began with a validated social capital instrument (Perry, et al., 2008), that was adapted in two ways to result in two new instruments to assess spiritual capital. One instrument assessed spiritual capital gained through participation in a religious or faith community (e.g,. church). The second assessed spiritual capital gained through one's relationship with a higher power (e.g., God). These instruments were developed through an iterative process, and administered to a national probability sample of 800 African American adults. Preliminary data suggest that the new instruments have high internal reliability (α=.61 original social capital; α=.98 spiritual capital-church; α=.91 spiritual capital-God). Additional validity data and factor analysis results are discussed, as well as if and how the construct of spiritual capital can be distinguished conceptually from spiritual support.