Preliminary Testing & Main Study

The Consciousness Quotient Inventory was developed and verified through 3 studies, two on preliminary stage on 150 persons, and one large study on 2474 persons.

Preliminary Testing – Studies 1 & 2
First evaluations of the CQ Inventory were conducted on two samples, first one made of 30 persons, and the second one of 120 persons. The results and feedback were used to correct items and some errors in items. The initial form of the CQ Inventory consisted of 64 items. After preliminary tests, 2 items were eliminated and 15 items reformulated.

Main study
The CQ Inventory was applied between June – September, 2008. After eliminating some incorrect answers, the sample that was analyzed consisted of 2474 persons, significant for the Romanian “premium” population (higher education, higher incomes, upper social status) from urban areas.

The sample had the following characteristics:
•  Gender: Masculine 18%; Feminine 82%
•  Age: 16-24 years 22%; 25-34 years 38%; 35-44 years 26%; 45-54 years 11%; over 55 years: 3%
•  Education: University education 90%
•  Marital status: Married 40%; Consensual union 16%; Single 44%
•  Monthly net income: 71% over medium salary
•  Social status: AB 77%
•  Body Type: Endomorph 40%; Mesomorph 37%; Ectomorph 23%
•  Body-Mass Index: Underweight 12%; Normal weight 59%; Overweight 21%; Obese 8%
•  Filter question – Spiritual techniques: 55% of the subjects are doing religious / spiritual / personal development / self-knowledge techniques, and 34% of the subjects are doing this techniques at least once a week.

Important notice: The sample is characterized by a strong heterogeneousness, due to this large predominance of the “premium” subjects. It is important to notice that this reduced variability in status / education / income has reduced also the variability of the answers, which also affected correlations data.

Scale Validation: Internal Consistency and Principal Component Analysis
In order to check CQ Inventory reliability I used two methods. Test –Retest and Cronbach’s Alpha for internal consistency.
Cronbach’s Alpha for preliminary studies and main study are presented below:

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All the factors have acceptable levels. Physical Consciousness factor had significant problems in the preliminary research. 6 items were modified and one deleted, having as a result a rise of Cronbach’s Alpha to an acceptable level (.698). A number of 15 items were modified after the preliminary study. After the main study most of the errors were corrected, yet a number of 12 items remain to be verified in the future.

Cronbach’s Alpha for secondary factors as resulted from main study are presented below:

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All the factors seems to have acceptable levels. The factor “mindfulness” seems to have a low internal consistency. These issue seems to have a strong cause in the concept itself. Future studies must be done to decide if there will be modification in this secondary factor.

In order to examine the factor structure of CQ Inventory, a principal components analysis with varimax rotation was performed. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin indicator was .930, which indicated that the factor analysis is recommended. Data results shows that 15 factors explain 56% of the total variance.

All the 6 primary factors of the BCQI were confirmed to be correct, and showed high loadings. A main result from the Factorial analysis is that most of the factors are “pure”, and only some concepts appear to be made of two or three sub-concepts (e.g. Spiritual, Emotional, Self-Consciousness, Mindfulness).

As this is the first study, I find it encouraging. The most delicate concept seems to be also here “mindfulness”, as the previous studies showed that it appears to be a unitary concept. Factorial Analysis showed that in CQ Inventory, “mindfulness” is made of 2 concepts: „lack of attention in the present”, and „being in cloudland”. I will observe its behavior in the following studies to see the relation between conscious experience and mindfulness.

Results. Correlation. Discussions

Consciousness Quotient
The general CQ score was calculated using percentile 50. Data obtained by the sample of 2474 persons are below (100 is maximum):

Consciousness Quotient (average) = 56

•  Physical Consciousness = 60
•  Emotional Consciousness = 57
•  Mental (Cognitive) Consciousness = 54
•  Spiritual Consciousness = 57
•  Social – Relational Consciousness = 52
•  Self-Consciousness = 59

All the primary factors have 50-60 points, showing that the subjects have a medium ability to be conscious. But, as this is the first study, this main CQ value doesn’t allow any other interpretations with other populations. The main inputs in data analysis comes from correlations between socio-demographical and anthropological data of the subjects, requested in the first part of the CQ Inventory. The analysis were developed using Pearson’s correlation.

Although it seems that none of the researched variables (gender, body type, age etc.) seems to correlate significantly with CQ descriptors (CQ general score, primary and secondary factors), I think this can be attributed to the heterogeneousness of my sample, positioned in premium “category”, or maybe there is really no correlation between CQ and these variables. Further research will confirm one of these options.

Gender
In order to check if there are any differences between men and women I have used T statistical test and the independent t-test. The differences between the mean vales have a low values (-2.58) and a low significance. So, I can say there was no difference between CQ for men and women..

Weight and Height
None of the above variables correlates significantly with the CQ variables, the general CQ and the primary and secondary factors.
As a hypothesis, some small insignificant correlations may be between Weight and Spiritual Consciousness (r=.067), Height and Emotional Consciousness (r=.099).

Some speculations regarding the correlation between the height and the emotional consciousness. The taller the persons are, the more they seems to manifest interest and attention toward emotions. That fact shows that perhaps tall persons (especially women) seems to develop some elevation in the emotional field, I suppose as a sort of unhappiness, due to this height. Of course, all these speculations must be verified in other studies using CQ Inventory.

Body-Mass Index
There is no correlation between BMI and CQ score and factors. The only value that is close to significance is for Spiritual Consciousness (r=.094), I presume because of the relation height-spiritual consciousness presented above.

Body Type
There are no significant correlations between body type and CQ.

Age
There are no significant correlations between age and CQ descriptors.
Some small correlations, with interesting results seems to be between Age and Purpose in Life (r=0.41) and Internal State Awareness (r=.031). Reality shows that as time passes, we tend to think more about the ending of our life, thus more attention is directed to the content described by items of Purpose in Life factor.

Income
There are no significant correlations between the six levels of income and CQ. Pearson’s correlation is r=.043. Between the CQ factors, the higher correlation has Spiritual Consciousness (r.066)
Although not at significant values, this value may show a relation between high income and high CQ. If we take a broader view, is not the humanistic perspective that when basic needs are satisfied, our mind becomes more relaxed and can think of something else other than food-shelter-cars? It seems that BCQI supports this idea.

Marital Status, Education, Social Status
There are no significant correlations between CQ and any of the these above variables.

Practicing Spiritual techniques & Frequency of practice
From the 2474 participants, 1373 persons (55%) declared they practice some transformational techniques on a regular basis. There are no significant correlations between practicing spiritual techniques and the frequency of practicing these techniques and CQ descriptors.

Notice: Although I presumed there will be a correlation, the results showed no correlations. I have grouped the techniques they have declared to be using at least once a week in the following top 3, using a word count of their open answers:
• 27%: prayer, church, religious
• 19%: meditation, yoga
• 18%: reading, book, lecture, courses

It seems that in order to produce significant changes in consciousness, all the above techniques must be practiced more than a few times a week. I expect to get significant correlations from studies on monks or on people in retreats.

Selective References

Baars, Bernard (197). In the Theatre of Consciousness. Global Workspace Theory. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 292 – 309
Brown, K.W. & Ryan, R.M. (2003). The benefits of being present: The role of mindfulness in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822-848.
Chalmers, David (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: University Press
Cohen, Jonathan & Schooler, Jonathan (Eds.). (1997). Scientific Approaches to Consciousness. New Jersey: , Erlbaum Associates
Crick, F. & Koch, C. (1995). Why Neuroscience May be Able to Explain Consciousness. Scientific American, 73, 84 – 85.
Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522-527.
Flanagan, Owen (1992). Consciousness Reconsidered, Cambridge: MIT Press
Globus, Gordon (1995). The Postmodern Brain. Philadelphia: Benjamin Books
Goleman, Daniel (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books
Grof, Stanislav (2000). Psychology of the Future – Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research. New York: SUNY Press
Guja, Cornelia (1997). The Human Being – a Biointerface between Microcosmos and Macrocosmos, Bucharest: Prospect Anthropos
Penrose, Roger (1994). Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford: University Press
Ryff, C.D., & Keyes, C.L.M. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719-727.
Sugerman, Arthur & Tarter, Ralph (Eds.). (1978). Expanding Dimensions of Consciousness. New York: Springer Publishing Company
Tart, Charles (1975). States of Consciousness. New York: E.P. Dutton and Co.
Vaughan, Frances & Walsh, Roger (Eds.). Paths Beyond Ego. The Transpersonal Vision. New York: Tarcher/Putnam Books
Wilber, Ken (2000). A Theory of Everything. Boston: Shambala
Wolman, Benjamin & Ullman, Montague (Eds.). (1986). Handbook of states of consciousness. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.

Popularity: 77% [?]

By Ovidiu Brazdau, PhD

The consciousness experience is the most mysterious subjective phenomenon that every human being experiences every day. Yet, the lack of scientific knowledge regarding this is reflected in the small number of terms that describes this ability: conscious, consciousness, being aware, aware understanding, conscious awareness, unconscious non-awareness, being unaware, It seems that no theory is accepted to everyone, in contrast to the wide acceptance of medical terminology. Consciousness seems to be a result or a component of all the sub-systems of a human being, instead of being generated by one single part of the brain, nervous system or body.

My researches concerning consciousness started in 1998, with EEG research with yoga meditation and kundalini trance states. Between 1998-2003 I have studied all the available theories and research in order to be up-to-date with the latest discoveries in the science of consciousness. To mention some of the important representatives I have studied during that time: Tart, Chalmers, Wilber, Searle, Baars, Krick, Koch, Ornstein, Lilly, Grof, Hilgard, Dennett, Engler, Coan, Jackendorf, Forman, Flanagan, Stapp, Globus, Velmans, Lycan, Cohen, Amit, Lockwood, Penrose.

Though I found many perspectives, I could not discover one dealing with the issue of measuring the consciousness levels and its changes. The only assessment instrument that seems to offer some perspective was “Self-Consciousness Scale” (Fenigstein, 1975). Since 2003-2008 I have developed my own model as a part of my Ph.D. research at the Institute of Anthropology – Romanian Academy of Science in Bucharest. My research was supported a lot by my experiences in the transpersonal psychology movement. I founded Romanian Association for Transpersonal Psychology in 2002 and since 2002 I get in touch with a lot of people and perspectives in consciousness research all over the world.

From my perspective consciousness must be studied as a universal experience: an experience, not a phenomenon philosophically speaking. This way we can define and describe consciousness qualities and we can measure it in a consciousness quotient (CQ). I leave to philosophers and neuropsychologists the task of debating about the nature of consciousness, or about the qualia, I focus on conscious experience itself (I present an abbreviated view of my own theory at the end of this article).

The designing of this consciousness quotient instrument came as a result of my research into the nature of consciousness and the desire to quantify consciousness. If IQ refers to the speed of information processing, the CQ refers to the ability to access the information with cognitive awareness or understanding.

The main goal of my research was to find some measurable qualities of the consciousness experience, other than from biology or physics. I use a cognitive psychology perspective to define my own model of the conscious experience.

In a few sentences, the main premises are these:

1. To be conscious is equivalent to having access to information.

2. The one who is accessing the information is the Self / Ego / “I” / Spirit / Atman / Knower etc.

3. Access does not necessarily mean to consciously understand. Processing information is a complex cognitive ability, that can be either conscious or unconscious.

4. The level of consciousness is directly proportional to the amount of information that can be accessed simultaneously.

As it can be observed, I do not take care of the philosophical problem “Who is the knower”. Is it the Self, is the Ego, or the Spirit… This is a debate I intend to stay out of it. What is important for me, is that there is an instance that gets the information received through our senses, and from our own processing. Also, I do not deal with processing of information. I am just interested if the information is there or not in the conscious field. If the information is there, in the conscious field, then the person must be able to demonstrate its presence by answering some simple questions about the information.

I have defined the Consciousness Quotient as the level of consciousness (or the level of being conscious) that is experienced in the morning, ½-1 hour after we woke up, after a refreshing sleep, without being exposed to any significant stimulus (coffee, TV, radio, music, talking etc.)

In other words, the consciousness quotient is the general level of being conscious / aware throughout a day, in regular life conditions. Of course, this level of being conscious can change, and we have some good available models that explain this (Charles Tart’s model is for me a very valid one, for example).

Every change in the conscious experience can be described in terms of information. I consider the main mechanism of all the states of consciousness to be the expansion / contraction of the consciousness field. Some of us have a larger level of consciousness, described by a higher CQ, that is: they can access plenty of information. Some of us have a lower CQ, and can access less information. And of course, areas where we can access information can differ in different states, but overall, the general CQ is the same. In some moments we are more conscious about our feelings, but less of our thoughts or our own being. Our CQ shows only the degree of what we are able to access simultaneously. In a regular state, increases in consciousness of one field (e.g. emotional field) can only be obtained “ stealing” consciousness resources from one side (e.g. social-relational field) and offer more consciousness to another field of life (e.g. emotional). In a way, it is similar to attention: we cannot focus on more than a few elements.

I do not intend to debate the nature of altered states of consciousness, and there are lots of questions I do not respond to with my CQ theory, I am aware of this. My intention is to do scientific measurements of consciousness.

I use the terms “being conscious” and “being aware” with a general similar meanings: access to information. I know some researchers have made specific separations between the meanings of the two terms, but from my point of view difference is that awareness is more applied to a limited now-here moment, while consciousness refers to a general ability. Or, in other words, consciousness is generated from all the limited now-here awareness experiences.

I liked the idea of Bernard Baars, who described consciousness using the metaphor of theater. Baars visualized the relationships between consciousness, attention, working memory and others in the so called “Theater of Consciousness”, in which attention acts as a spotlight, and the players in the spotlight onstage are contents of conscious experience. Using this model to describe the CQ theory, I would say that the CQ would be like the entire theater building. Some theaters have larger stages, with lots of actors and high power spot lights, some theaters have smaller stages, and small spotlight, with only a few personnel to manipulate the spots.

A higher CQ than the average means a person can access simultaneously a larger amount of information, while a lower CQ means that person can access a lower amount of information. Hence, the one with a higher CQ will usually have a larger perspective, if the information is processed and understood. If one person enters for one hour a mystic trance state, perhaps he/she will access much more information during that state. But from my perspective and using CQ theory, his/her Consciousness Quotient is only what will remain after the peak experience vanished. If the state is „habitualized”, and persists months after the peak experience, we can assume that it is possible to have a higher CQ.

I felt necessary to introduce dimensionality in the study of conscious experiences, because some “spiritual” leaders have a developed spiritual perspective, but low value social interactivity, and can behave as if they are social primates, driven only by instinct, some of them having personal emotional unsolved problems. In my own search, I found in Yoga a wonderful support. The model of subtle informational bodies seems useful for describing some aspects of the conscious experience of the human being.

As a final remark in this introduction, I must say that in order to label a CQ as “lower” or “higher” we must see what is the average CQ of a population, and to measure the Minimal Effectiveness Baseline CQ, necessary for a human being to survive in our complex environment.

Popularity: 64% [?]