An Examination of the Effects of Religious Orientation on Personality (Part 3)

An Examination of the Effects of Religious Orientation on Personality (Part 3)

Ok so I wrote this really good research paper that expands on the ideas I presented in an earlier paper which is posted here and titled A Critque of Allport's Mature Religion. For ease of reading I am breaking the paper into multiple sections so the rest will be coming.

If you want more please comment and tell me how ethusiatic you are about getting the rest of this very interesting paper!

Correlations Between Religious Orientation and Personality

Elizabeth Egan, Jerome Kroll, Kathleen Carey, Myles Johnson, and Paul Erickson published their findings in 2004 as the Eysenck Personality Scales and Religiosity in a US Outpatient Sample. Through their analysis they concluded that those who scored high on the extrinsic scale also scored high on personality traits associated with neuroticism, schizotypicism as well as scoring high on the social desirability scale (Egan pg. 1026). They also found “that mental health states such as depression or demoralization may mediate relationships between personality traits and personal beliefs” (Egan pg. 1030).

In 2001 Adam Cohen and Paul Rozin demonstrated in Religion and the Morality of Mentality “differences in moral judgment were partially mediated by Protestants’ beliefs that mental states were controllable and likely to lead to action and were strongly related to agreement with general statements claiming that thoughts are morally relevant” (Cohen pg. 697). Their study examined the differences in the way followers of Judaism and those who professed Protestant religious beliefs perceived their thoughts and actions as either moral or immoral and the level of controllability associated with such thoughts. Their conclusions were incredibly important to the field of religion and psychology in that it demonstrated that the impressions amongst those who claim to be religious often had a large influence in their perception of what was moral and what was deemed to be immoral this also showed strong correlations and support for the idea that some who claim a strong affiliation to a Protestant religious group are often subject to negative personality traits, feelings of guilt and anxiety in that they feel their ideas and thoughts are just as bad as the actual actions regardless of whether or not the thoughts are acted on.

In a short article titled Psychoticism and Attitude to Religion (1981) William Kay reported that the “negative correlation between Psychoticism and attitude to religion (Christianity) is very evident among boys in the 11-15 age range” (Kay pg. 251). He noted that this relationship was less marked in girls of the same age but said this may be because of the inhibitions created by culture, a misinterpretation of the items and a penchant for socially desirable responses. In a similar article Religiosity, Psychoticism, and Schizotypal Traits published in 1995 by Josephine White, Stephen Joseph and Alastair Neil hypothesized that a more positive view of religion would result in lower psychoticism and schizotypal scores on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Their findings suggested that religiosity may even need to be considered as its own aspect of personality questionnaires as many of the ideas presented within religious dogma are associated with delusions that are represented in the psychoticism and schizotypal subscales. They explained that this could be a large factor in the consistency of results linking specific religious orientations with negative personality traits (White pg. 850).

The most recent and inclusive study on religious orientation and personality was published in 2004 by Peter Hills, Leslie Francis, Michael Argyle, and Chris Jackson. Primary Personality Trait Correlates of Religious Practice and Orientation thoroughly examined the correlations between personality traits and religious orientation. Correlating Eysenck’s primary personality factors and the Batson and Schoenrade Religious Life Inventory, important distinctions regarding the nature of religious awareness and personality were drawn. Validation was made that guilt and feelings of neurosis and anxiety are directly indicative of extrinsic or quest religious orientation. They showed that almost every factor associated with high levels of neuroticism were positively correlated with an extrinsic or quest religious orientation while negatively correlated with intrinsic orientation. Furthermore there was a negative correlation demonstrated between almost every aspect of psychoticism and intrinsic orientation. The correlation between Psychoticism, quest and extrinsic orientation was not overtly statistically significant however the findings were still relevant in demonstrating a slight negative correlation. (Hills pg. 68). Those who scored high on the extrinsic scale also showed lower levels of empathy and responsibility. Their study also showed that the three aspects of religious orientation examined showed distinct differences between each other. Intrinsic orientations demonstrated the most variance while quest and extrinsic orientations showed almost identical results in their correlation with personality traits (Hills pg. 70). They concluded that religious orientation is also highly associated with some form of personality factor that is not represented in any of the tests they conducted “or that spiritual awareness is itself an individual personality difference that is missing from most traditional models” (Hills pg. 71).