January 2025
The Better Life Test (BLT) has evolved from an older test written in 1969 by Dr. William Backus at the University of Minnesota1. Under the supervision of a former American Psychological Association president, his test measured seven personality traits that were considered unhealthy (vanity, envy, resentment, greed, laziness, lust, and gluttony - the seven deadly sins).1 He called it the Sinful Attitudes Inventory, and his research indeed found many statistically significant correlations between these traits and mental health. People scoring high on these traits were significantly more likely to be mentally ill, and vice versa.
Dr. Backus decided not to publish his test because of its religious intonations. But he encouraged this writer to develop a more extensive test for publication, one that would measure character strengths as well as sinful attitudes. With help from Dr. Wayne Oates and other faculty at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Character Assessment Scale (CAS)was published in 1981.2 It was normed on a sample of 600 international subjects who wrote in for copies of the test to become part of its normative sample.
The CAS measured the same seven traits which Dr. Backus had examined, and added scales for healthy attitudes that would counteract the seven toxic ones. It also constructed an eighth pair of traits on the issue of Truthfulness (Honesty versus Denial, with the letter serving much like the MMPI's Lie Scale. It was normed on 600 people from all 50 states and all seven Canadian provinces. The following year it was presented to the American Psychological Association convention in Los Angeles. 3 Th4e decades later, it was described in the APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology.4 It was sold at cost to people in thirteen countries in four continents, and then sold out of its second printing.
To create a revised version of the CAS to be presented online for free, a nonprofit corporation was formed in 2020, Wellness Education Living and Loving (WELL, Inc.). The new CAS retained the best performing items of the old test, revised some others, and included new items. It measures all eight pairs of the original traits, plus a ninth health issue of Peace: Fear versus Faith. After this test was given online to some of Dr. Schmidt’s clients and friends, the hosting service for the test (LimeSurvey in Germany) was unable to make requested changes in the test. So it was taken back off-line, and independent software programmers (four in three years) were hired to put the test back online in a more secure and user-friendly form.
In September of 2023, another test measuring the same nine pairs of traits was written for a general audience, theBetter Life Test (BLT).The next year the CAS was also put online, and both instruments were given to students at Asbury University as pilot tests. Our secure, encrypted portal at mynewlife.com gave test results back immediately through email. Both tests were found to be too long for popular use, each taking some 30 or 35 minutes to complete, so we do not yet have enough protocols scored to establish norms for each scale with a broad population sample.
During the next two years, totally new items were constructed for shorter versions of each test - the Character Assessment Scale - mini (CASm) and the Better Life Test - mini (BLTm). Norms are now being established for these tests, which take some 15 minutes each. Both tests are free, online, and anonymous: demographic information given by test responders is only vague and non-identifying. Test results are sent to whatever email address the test-taker gives, but that could belong to a friend, relative, or neighbor. These email addresses are never stored in the same database as the test-taker’s demographics, test answers, and scaled scores.
They are characteristics of personal well-being. The BLT doesn’t measure what the healthcare and wealthcare industries measure, or what the health and wealth gospel promotes, namely, the current powers of one’s body or bank account. Nor does it measure the healthiness of the heart, mind, or libido that depend on our bodies, or our marriages or families that depend our bank accounts. Rather, the BLT measures the healthiness of individual people who are taking care of all these things. To religion, it’s the mortal soul. To psychology, it’s the executive ego. To philosophy, it’s the true self. We all experience this as the part of us that chooses what we pay attention to.
They make practical, common sense. The general definition of wellness behind the BLT is whatever does the most good and the least harm to all people in the long run. It sees people not only as individuals, but as members of families, societies, and “tribes”. It teaches the universal and obvious truth that you reap what you sow. Karma comes back to us. Treating others as you need to be treated takes care of individuals and society, by loving others and loving ourselves. As both sickness and wellness can be “caught” from others, in the long run, we can’t afford to take away their health, or make them sick.
The nine issues cover common causes for patient noncompliance with medical directives. There is now no widely used or accepted measure for predicting and improving medical compliance. In their 2020 review of the literature on compliance, Kardas et al.5 concluded: “Despite half a century of dedicated studies, medication adherence remains far from perfect, with many patients not taking their medications as prescribed. The magnitude of this problem is rising, jeopardizing the effectiveness of evidence-based therapies.” The same is true for diet, exercise, masking, physical therapy, and other health-related behaviors. The BLT should be quite useful for addressing the problem of compliance.
They contrast attitudes of overflowing fullness with those of insatiable hunger. Nine assets among others can be experienced and expressed in either healthy or unhealthy ways, as a creator or as a creature: truth, peace, respect, love, mercy, sexuality, wealth, purpose, and bodily health. Healthy people believe they draw their health from wellsprings inside and around them, so helping others live healthier lives just seems to make them stronger. By contrast, unhealthy people have a natural craving for more of these experiences, seeing themselves as taking these foods for the soul from other souls through manipulation. This sets them against other people, and over time they need to take more and more. This competitive approach seems to corrode their imaginary leaking containers for holding onto these nine life resources.
They have stood the tests of time and space. They have been taught all over the world for over 30 centuries. Tencenturies before Christ, King Solomon called together in Jerusalem wise men and women from all over the known world, to teach and learn from each other. Solomon taught Jewish people about all these traits. These are recorded in the book of Proverbs in the Bible, and passages from this book are included in the Devotional Studies WELL has written for each of the nine assets. According to Harvard professor Morton Bloomfield,6 all the same traditional ideas had appeared 500 years later, in the writings of Persian poets and wisemen, Egyptian mystics and scholars, and Zoroaster, a mysterious but influential teacher sometimes known as Zarathustra. The battle between good/lively versus bad/deadly traits is the central theme in the widespread ancient story of the Soul Journey, and these traits are among the most commonly included in that story. Bloomfield showed that this story also started 2500-3000 years ago with Judaic, Persian, Babylonian, and Greek influences, and then became prevalent in the western world. 1500 years after Solomon, these pairs of traits had become officially sanctioned by Christianity in Rome. Similar lists of nourishing vs. poisonous foods for the soul were being taught in China and Tibet in Confucian and Taoist traditions.7 All these 18 traits are still widely discussed today, throughout all cultures of the world. Six of the nine issues the BLT measures are mentioned in a summary of how health and wellbeing is now being understood in India.8
These nine pairs of traits are a hybrid of both religious and secular wisdom. As for secular authority, the philosophy of the common good teaches that what is good for one is good for all, and vice versa. This was first taught in Greece by Aristotle, then in Renaissance Europe by Rousseau and Locke, and later by modern Islamic scholars. More recently, in 12-step recovery, when people do their fourth steps, all nine pairs of traits are required to be inventoried by all members of AA and most other 12-step groups. The golden rule and reaping what we sow are two of the most commonly taught aphorisms in Western society. These common-sense truths give good pictures of the good life as the BLT defines it (doing the most good and least harm to all concerned in the long run), and pictures the dynamics of how sickness and health flow (what we give out and take in leads others to do the same).
As for religious authority, whenever the Bible gives major guidance and laws for how to live, it says that they are given to inspire healthy wellbeing. In Deuteronomy 6: 2-3, Moses taught the ten commandments were given so that “you will enjoy a long life. . . . all will go well with you.” About 500 years later Solomon said that his teachings would bring “life to those who find them, and health to their whole body. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life,” Proverbs 4: 20-23, WEB. About 1000 years later, Jesus began the sermon of the mount by saying “blessed are” those who follow his teachings, and closed it by saying we will know people “by their fruits” (Matthew 5-7). And in Galatians 5: 19-23, Paul describes these “fruits of the flesh” and “fruits of the spirit”, listing most of the 18 traits of personal sickness and well-being which the TAW measures. As Moses had done, Paul’s major theme (again in Colossians 3) was proclaiming freedom from bondage to sin (bad/toxic habits) for those who pursue the good and healthy life. All these scriptural passages instruct people to bless others and themselves, not just now but also in the long run. [An annotated bibliography shows further where teachings of the BLT and WELL are found throughout the Bible: mynewlife.com/the-biblical-basis-for-the-blt].
Science needs a way to measure the sickness and wellness of a person. Michael Bishop in 2015 reviewed over 200 wellness resources. He concluded that both philosophy and psychology have found no widely accepted way to define or measure wellness.9 In a later international review of wellness literature (86 references cited in October 2019), Matthew Fisher in Australia came to the same conclusion.10 Both Fisher and Bishop recommended that theory and research develop a network of causally related and behaviorally measurable traits, and that is just what the BLT has done.
A review of coaching literature found no dominant theory or model to guide health and wellness coaches.11 In 2020, an excellent journal review of wellness theory and research compared in detailed charts the features, strengths, and weaknesses of six models, each with its own test.12 The authors concluded that each model and test had its merits and limitations, but they found “no gold standard” (p.6). “Current scales need additional research to support use with varying populations” (p.8). WELL is seeking to establish separate norms for different ages, genders, nationalities, cultures, and perhaps religious faiths.
Research with the CAS first revealed the causal relationships shown in the WELL model flowchart.13 That test measured healthy and unhealthy ways to use eight of the nine issues the BLT examines. Of the 300 intercorrelations between the scales, every single one was in the expected direction: changes in any unhealthy trait came along with similar changes in all the other toxic patterns (mindsets and lifestyles). The same positive correlations were observed between healthy traits (beliefs and habits). And every unhealthy trait was negatively correlated with every healthy trait measured, showing that the healthy mindsets and lifestyles were working actively against the toxic ones, and vice-versa. These relationships were so strong that 294 of the 300 intercorrelations were significant beyond the probability level of .001. That showed there was only 1 chance in 1000 that these qualities weren't working together in tandem toward the same effects common to all their trait definitions: freedom, growth, and life versus bondage, decay, and death.
These findings were validated by asking the 600 people who took the test to express before knowing their scores which of the eight issues they believed they were having the most problems with. The same question about them was asked of their counselors. The test scores accurately predicted the issues people thought were their healthiest and most unhealthy issues, and also what their counselors thought their highest and lowest scores would be (both these similarities were beyond the .0001 level of significance).
In a 2022 review of over 1500 studies on health and well-being, psychologist Dr. Meetu Khosla described the existing measures of wellness.14 None of the tests he reviewed were noted to be more comprehensive, useful, or popular than the others, and therefore he cited the need for a “broad multidimensional inventory.” At the end of his review of all the research to date on wellness, he concludes: “Health psychologists need to work in collaboration with other disciplines, such as social sciences, medical sciences and economics to develop strategies with a more holistic appeal and significance.” WELL and the BLT are following that recommendation.
More recently in 2023, Masters et al reviewed over 75 studies over 30 years, and concluded that healthy mindsets such as “life satisfaction, positive affect, purpose/meaning in life, and optimism are each associated with better physical health”.15 Traditionally observed lifestyles such as religious service attendance, spiritual problem-solving habits, religious orientation, and prayer have been associated with better health outcomes. The authors called for more experimental designs proving causation, using a wider variety of beliefs and habits studied over longer periods of time with a wider variety of cultures around the world. Open research using the Creative Commons copyright of the BLT is designed to realize these hopes.
That same year, Edward Shafranske summarized over 11,000 articles published over the past 20 years on the relationship between mental health and the positive mindsets and lifestyles that have traditionally been associated with religion and spirituality.16 These studies found conflicting positive and negative relationships with religion/spirituality and mental health. Shafranske recognized that unhealthy forms religion and spirituality have produced unhealthy mental health outcomes, but he did not identify or discuss unhealthy mindsets, lifestyles, or outcomes. WELL has planned to study all this with data from the BLT. Shafranske clarified that “positive psychology reflects a secular approach in which positive emotions . . . and the cultivation of virtues promote well-being to achieve optimal human functioning” [health].17 Religion and spirituality on the other hand “anchor well-being [mindsets] and flourishing [lifestyles] in the search for the sacred”[brackets added]. At the conclusion of his article, Schafranske provided an excellent dynamic “conceptual model of religious/spiritual pathways to well-being and mental health” (Figure 22.1, p. 353). This model meshes nicely with the dynamic flowchart being used by WELL. Both models cover issues the other doesn’t, and the areas of overlap are presented in different but compatible ways.
Another 2023 literature review to demonstrate the strong positive relationship between moral character and health found that in decades of studies, strengths of character were reliably found along with better physical fitness, life satisfaction, subjective sense of wellbeing, and generally better physical and mental health.18 The reviewers’ own research with 1200 subjects found that those reporting traditional moral beliefs and lifestyles (helping others, delayed gratification, promoting cooperation) not only reported better life satisfaction over two years, but filed significantly fewer health insurance claims during that time.
The most comprehensive review of theory and research on what the BLT is measuring is the Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (2023).19 In their concluding 31st chapter, the authors recognize that “religious mechanisms have helped people cultivate virtues and well-being for millennia – through historic religious practices, guided by historic religious texts, and nurtured in historic religious traditions and communities” (p.496). The authors specifically call for research that will be more cross-sectional, cross-cultural, and longitudinal, using better experimental designs that will demonstrate cause and effect. They agree with Linley et al20 that the primary research need is for more studies about “wellsprings”, which might include individual genetics and temperament and contributions of relationships and culture. They mention six domains which have the greatest potential for doing the most good for the most people over time. WELL already has written plans to impact all six: clinical practice, religious ministry, character education, organizational settings, humanitarian and disaster contexts, and public health.
The wellness mindset grows by believing in a supernaturally loving God who indwells people and groups that seek this indwelling power. Seeing God this way as a creative source for life, health, freedom, and wellness helps people experience life as flowing from inner and outer wellsprings of healthy habits and beliefs. Trusting in a stronger, higher power for healthy life reduces the fear of decay, disease, bondage, and death. Peterson and Seligman founded a popular movement of positive psychology.21 They impressively demonstrated which traits throughout history had been most frequently believed to produce mental health, and then began to measure them. They originally studied five key virtues: wisdom (creativity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective), courage (bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality),humanity (love, kindness, social intelligence), justice (citizenship, fairness, leadership), and temperance (forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation). But in time they changed their theory to add a sixth “character strength” as they called them, transcendence (gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality, and appreciation of beauty, “strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning.”). This demonstrated the healing benefits of believing one has indwelling higher powers, especially a benign, divine being who inspires healthiness without taking away the experience of free choice. WELL’s long-term research project here with the BLT will investigate this theoretical assertion, among many others. Positive psychology is a major aspect of personal well-being.
Peterson and Seligman's excellent study of history and culture reveals hybrid definitions of traits that bridge philosophy, psychology, religion, and science. Our research here with the BLT follows that lead, using the same 5-point Likert scale for our items. WELL is building on this excellent work, and going beyond it, in three key ways.
We are also looking at negative psychology. We are investigating toxic beliefs and habits that actively undermine positivity and health. Believing that the greatest supernatural power in the universe is impersonal, distant, uncaring, controlling, hateful, or destructive inspires unhealthy attitudes and habits. Such beliefs and habits drain life out of people, like whirlpools. We see and study illness as more than the absence of health/strength. Whereas Backus only studied sickening traits with his Sinful Attitudes Inventory, Peterson and Seligman have mostly studied healthy ones. WELL is doing both.
We describe natural assets that are universally needed, and can be experienced in healthy or unhealthy ways. This gives us a dynamic model that shows cause and effect. It portrays the flow of life and death in people and organizations, based on whether they are creating or consuming these nine natural life-giving resources. When WELL researches sensitive issues such as religious belief and practice, two of our core values should help us shed considerable light on such questions. With “Scientific Integrity, we validate truth and demonstrate its practical applications by careful experimental design and literature review that avoid filter bias in what we learn and what we teach.” Likewise with “Cross-validation, we seek and validate truth through multiple wisdom streams, such as scripture and prayer, historical inquiry, scientific research, objective journalism, life stories, and common sense.”
What else does this project study, and what other sensitive subjects? WELL is measuring the effects of 18 demographic variables. Spiritual beliefs and religious loyalties are two among these others: age, gender, relational status, physical health, mental health, financial health, educational level, type of occupation, geographical location, and political philosophies. We look forward to learning how these factors can work in favor of some people’s personal health while they may undermine others, depending on the somewhat chosen mindsets and lifestyles which the BLT is measuring.
Science and religion need a clear definition of personal well-being, a theory and flowchart model explaining its origins and dynamics, and a reliable instrument for measuring the sickness and wellness of a person. The Better Life Test offers to meet these needs. In agreement with the summaries and recommendations in the preceding section, it stands on decades of theory and research. Its scale norms are cross-sectional, cross-cultural, and based on those of respondents being gathered from around the world. The traits it measures are causally related to each other, and to demographic variables we are studying. The primary research is being conducted in partnership with students and faculty at Asbury University. Statistical analyses will continue to be objective and rigorous, designed to be worthy of publication in juried professional journals.
1 Backus, D. William, The Seven Deadly Sins: Their Meaning and Measurement. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1969.
2 Schmidt, Paul F. “The Character Assessment Scale: A new tool for the counselor.” Journal of Pastoral Care, 1980, 24, 76-83.
3 Schmidt, Paul F. “Assessing the moral dimension of the personality: The Character Assessment Scale.” One-hour paper presentation to the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, 1981.
4 Kurt F. Geisinger, Ed. APA Handbook of Testing and Assessment in Psychology (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2013).
5 Kardas, Przemyslaw and 12 others. “The Need to Develop Standard Measures of Patient Adherence”: Journal of Medical Internet Research, Aug 27 2020.
6 Bloomfield, Morton M. The Seven Deadly Sins: The Introduction to the History of a Religious Concept. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2nd Edition, 1967, pp.14-17, 317, 321.
7 Peterson, Christopher and Seligman, Martin. Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2004; Bloomfield, pp.37, 40.
8 Khosla, Meetu. Understanding the Psychology of Health and Well-being. Los Angeles, Sage Texts, 2022.
9 Bishop, Michael. The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-being. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, pp. 32-4, 280-283.
10 Fisher, Matthew. A theory of public wellbeing. BMC Public Health 19, 1283 (2019).
11 Sforzo, Gary S. et al. Compendium of the health and wellness coaching literature. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 2017, 12, 6, 436—447.
12 Blount, Ashley, Taylor, Dalena, and Lambie, Glenn. “Wellness in the Helping Professions: Historical Overview, Wellness Models, and Current Trends.” Journal of Wellness, 2020, 2, 2, pp.1-10.
13 Schmidt, Paul F. “Self-esteem: Assessing the moral dimension.” Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 1984, 3, 1, 52-57; Schmidt, Paul F. “Manual for the Character Assessment Scale.” Shelbyville, KY: Institute for Character Development, 4th edition, 1991.
14 Khosla, pp. 246-254.
15 Masters, Kevin & Boehm, Julia & Boylan, Jennifer & Vagnini, Kaitlyn & Rush, Christina. (2023). “The Scientific Study of Positive Psychology, Religion/Spirituality, and Physical Health.” Chapter 21, pp 329–343, in Davis, Edward & Worthington Jr., Everett & Schnitker, Sarah (Eds.), p.337.
16 Shafranske, Edward P. “The Scientific Study of Positive Psychology, Religion/Spirituality, and Mental Health.” Chapter 22, pp 345–358, in
17 Shafranske, p. 351.
18 Weziak-Bialowolska, Dorota et al. Prospective associations between strengths of moral character and health: longitudinal evidence from survey and insurance claims data. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2023, 58, 1, 163-176
19 Davis, Edward & Worthington Jr., Everett & Schnitker, Sarah (Eds.). Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality (2023). Switzerland: Springer.
20 Linley, A. P., Joseph, S., Harrington, S., and Wood, A. M. (2006). Positive psychology: Past, present, and (possible) future. Journal of Positive Psychology, 1, 1, 3-16.
21 Peterson and Seligman, p. 30.