This study reports the validation assessment of the Consciousness Quotient Inventory- CQI (Brazdau, 2008). The CQI is composed of six dimensions of the conscious experience, which form the Consciousness Quotient (CQ): physical, emotional, mental (cognitive), spiritual, social-relational and self-consciousness.

This research is the first part of an extensive validation process of the CQI. In this stage, four studies to measure the concurrent validity were developed, using other validated assessment instruments, which measure different psychological constructs.

The following validation criteria were used: General Mental Ability (GMA) measured with the General Ability Measure for Adults (GAMA), an IQ test which assesses GMA using reasoning and logic in order to solve problems containing abstract shapes and designs; Emotional Intelligence, measured with the Emotional Quotient Inventory – EQ-I, an empirically developed test designed to measure Emotional Intelligence, based on Reuven Bar-On theory.

The CQI relation with personality traits was measured using two different personality questionnaires, in order to cover various areas of personality: California Psychological Inventory (CPI) and NEO Personality Inventory, Revised (NEO PI-R). The participants (N=120) were randomly assigned, aged between 19 and 65 years.

The data was analyzed, calculating the correlation and regression coefficient. The results show a significant correlation with some of the criteria and it is concluded that the CQI may serve as a useful measure in psychological assessment.

The first book on the Consciousness Quotient, published in Romania by Info-Sanatate Press and Scientific American Mind Romania, in partnership with the Consciousness Quotient Institute.

“CQ:  The Consciousness Quotient” book presents the Consciousness Quotient Theory and the validation studies regarding the Consciousness Quotient Inventory (CQI), realised by the author during his PhD studies (2003-2008).

The CQ is defined by the author “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)”.

The CQ Inventory is introduced, and the validation research data are presented. The Inventory was developed and verified through 2 studies, on Romanian population. The CQ Inventory was applied between June – September, 2008. The sample that was analyzed consisted of 2474 persons.

Book details

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Info-Sanatate Press, Bucharest Romania (March, 2011)
Language: Romanian
ISBN-13: 978-6069283004
Dimensions: 16,5 x 23,5 cm.

Available online at:

>> Paper (pdf format) available in our database, click here.
>> Available also on Science Direct

The Consciousness Quotient: a new predictor of the students’ academic performance
Ovidiu Brazdău, Cristian Mihai

Abstract
The purpose of this study is to establish the practical usage of Consciousness Quotient in the educational psychology field. Basic hypothesis of this study was to determinate the incremental validity brought by the Consciousness Quotient in the prediction of academic performance. The study is based on a 138 participants from the Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania. The “Consciousness Quotient Inventory” (CQI) and “General Ability Measure for Adults” (GAMA) are used to evaluate the Consciousness Quotient and the Intelligence Levels. The results confirm the influence of Consciousness Quotient in the academic performance appraisal.

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The Conference “Teachers for the Knowledge Society” is the closing conference of a two years EU project: Training the MST Teachers through a Master Program for the Knowledge Society (http://www.masterprof.ro/eng/) organized by P.G. University of Ploiesti, Romania. It is also intended to be a starting point for a series of events dedicated to improve teacher education programs. The conference will be held in Sinaia, Romania (http://www.hotelsinaia.ro), 17-19 March, 2011.

Invited speakers: Howard Gardner, Harvard University; Pieter de Vries, Delft University; Wim Veen, Delft University

http://conference2011.masterprof.ro/

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The index presents the research articles and papers on CQ published in journals and magazines or presented on various conferences around the world. The materials are available online on the original site or in our local database.  Please send us your material in pdf or ppt if you wish to add it to the index.

Brazdau, O. & Mihai, C. (2011). The Consciousness Quotient: a new predictor of the students’ academic performance. Elsevier Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 11, 245–250.
>> Paper (pdf format) available in our database, click here.
>> Available also on Science Direct

Brazdau, O. (2011). CQ: Coeficientul de constientizare. The Consciousness Quotient (CQ) & The CQ Inventory – Theory and Research. Bucharest: Info-Sanatate Press.
>> Paperback: 240 pages. Language: Romanian. Dimensions: 16,5 x 23,5 cm. ISBN-13: 978-6069283004.

Brazdau, O  (2010, July). Coeficientul de conştientizare (Consciousness Quotient – CQ): un concept românesc provoacă valuri în cercurile ştiinţifice internaţionale. Scientific American Mind Romania, 30(1), 22-25. Retrieved July 01, 2010, from http://www.sciam.ro/coeficientul-de-constientizare-un-concept-romanesc-provoaca-valuri-in-cercurile-stiintifice-internationale/
>> Printed paper (pdf format) available in our database, click here. (romanian)

Brazdau, O  (2010). The Consciousness Quotient: A New Concept for Exploring the Consciousness Experience. Paper presented at the 17th International Transpersonal Conference, Moscow, Russia. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from http://www.ita2010.com/Program. (english)

Harris, M. (2010, April 10). Time to mind your IQs, EQs … and your CQs too. The Times, South Africa. Retrieved May 10, 2010, from http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/article395653.ece/Time-to-mind-your-IQs–EQs-…-and-your-CQs-too. (english)

Gheoca, G  (2010, February). Coeficientul de conştientizare: un concept românesc provoacă valuri în cercurile ştiinţifice internaţionale. Info-Sanatate. Ziarul Comunitatii Medicale, 11(2), 8-9, Romania. Retrieved August 01, 2010, from http://issuu.com/info-sanatate/docs/11-ziar-info-sanatate-11-feb2010-lrez.(romanian)

Brazdau, O  (2009). The Conscious Experience: Consciousness Quotient (CQ) and Brazdau CQ Inventory. Paper presented at Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference, Hong Kong, China. Retrieved January 7, 2010, from http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/TSCHongKong09ProgramUpdated.htm
>> Conference Paper (pdf format) available in our database, click here. (english)

Brazdau, O  (2008). Research on consciousness experience from the perspective of anthropology of individual. The Consciousness Quotient and CQ Inventory. Doctoral dissertation, Romanian Academy of Science, Bucharest, Romania.
>> An excerpt including Introduction, Summary and the CQ Inventory (pdf format) available in our database, click here. (romanian)

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The debate took place at the “New Paradigm in Science” Panel, chaired by Harris Friedman, president of the International Transpersonal Association.

Timetable available at  http://www.ita2010.com/Timetable

“Scientific American Mind Romania – Psihologia Azi”  is accredited by the Romanian College of Medical Doctors – Colegiul Medicilor din Romania.

„Psihologia Azi” (Psychology Today) is the first romanian psychology magazine for large audience, launched in 2003. Between 2003-2006 it was published independently, and between 2006-2009 it was a part of the Realitatea-Catavencu media group. SciAm Mind Romania is now published by Info-Health Network, an independent media group with publications and activities in healthcare communication.

The group also publishes Info-Health Newspaper for medical community, the free publication for health professionals with the largest circulation in Romania (30.000 copies per edition). Info-Health network also manages the only national indoor advertising system, covering all major hospitals and private clinics of Romania. More than 400 locations from 90 cities are included in the network.

In Romania, the local psychology field is under quick development. In 2003 there were around 2.000 psychologists and now there are already 8.400 registered psychologists and 1.200 therapists, at a population of 21.000.000 persons, that is 39 psychologists per 100.000 people. The interests in psychology is increasing every year, as there is a growing media coverage with psychological perspectives of the every day events.

First edition of SciAm Mind Romania was issued in 15.000 copies, with 3 euros cover price. It is available in all newsstands and online bookshops. Subscriptions are also available in partnership with Hachette Distribution Services.

Other details available at www.SciAm.ro.

http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/careers/article395653.ece/Time-to-mind-your-IQs–EQs-…-and-your-CQs-too

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:

.
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:

.
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.