Compare methods

	Spiritual Transcendence Scale	Faith Maturity Scale
Field	Religious Studies	Religious Studies
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	1999	1993
Originator	Ralph L. Piedmont	Peter L. Benson, Michael J. Donahue & Joseph A. Erickson
Type	Higher-order latent measure of spiritual transcendence	Two-dimensional latent measure of mature faith
Seminal source	Piedmont, R. L. (1999). Does spirituality represent the sixth factor of personality? Spiritual transcendence and the Five-Factor Model. Journal of Personality, 67(6), 985-1013.	Benson, P. L., Donahue, M. J., & Erickson, J. A. (1993). The Faith Maturity Scale: Conceptualization, measurement, and empirical validation. Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, 5, 1-26.
Aliases	STS, Piedmont Spiritual Transcendence Scale, Spiritual Transcendence Measure, Sixth Factor Spirituality Scale	FMS, Faith Maturity Index, Vertical-Horizontal Faith Scale, Mature Faith Measure
Related	3	3
Summary	The Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), developed by Ralph Piedmont in 1999, measures spirituality as a broad motivational disposition — the capacity to stand outside one's immediate sense of time and place and view life from a larger, unifying perspective. Piedmont's striking proposal was that this disposition constitutes a sixth factor of personality, independent of the Five-Factor Model. The STS is built from three facets: prayer fulfillment, the experience of joy and contact with the transcendent through prayer or meditation; universality, the belief in the unity and shared purpose of all life; and connectedness, a sense of belonging and responsibility across generations and people. These facets combine into a higher-order spiritual transcendence score that Piedmont showed predicts outcomes beyond the Big Five and converges across self- and observer reports.	The Faith Maturity Scale (FMS), developed by Peter Benson, Michael Donahue, and Joseph Erickson in 1993, measures not how much religion a person professes but how fully a vibrant, life-transforming faith is lived out. It was built on a denominationally inclusive definition of mature faith and is organized around two dimensions: vertical faith, a deepening relationship with the transcendent or divine, and horizontal faith, the translation of that relationship into service, compassion, and social concern for others. The instrument's distinctive claim is that genuine faith maturity requires both — an inward relationship with God and an outward commitment to humanity — and that a person strong on only one dimension has not reached integrated maturity. Originally developed across mainline Protestant denominations, the FMS became a standard measure of lived, mature faith.