What Makes Someone Religious? — An Analysis of Recent Research in Religiosity & Personality
The United States remains a relatively religious country despite the trend towards secularism in other western societies. Additionally, ideological elements of religion trickle over into the political and social debate. Understanding the connection between personality types and religion helps provides greater insight into the psychological underpinnings of religiosity and facilitates more effective communication and negotiation between believers of varying faiths and non-believers.
For amateur psychology enthusiasts, the internet can be an overwhelming place to do research. It is incredible to think that a comprehensive database of millennia’ worth of evolving human knowledge is immediately available on the device that we carry in our jacket pockets. We turn to the Google search bar to find the answers to life’s biggest mysteries. One of them, the connection between personality traits and religiosity.
Exactly what makes a person religious? The answer is not simple.
A compounding challenge of accessing accurate scientific information on the internet is the availability of copious popular science articles. Such articles are made available by online news outlets and regurgitated by journalists and bloggers. Writers do not usually specialize in the field about which they are reporting and may not include a balanced scientific context for the new research upon which they are reporting. Given the cost required to access peer-reviewed, refereed scientific journals, the average internet user misses out on primary source research that would enable them to consume popular science articles with greater criticality and discernment.
By way of example, a recent Google News search for the expression “personality psychology religion” yielded, on the first page, the article which will be the launching pad for this essay. I will provide a summary and analysis of 14 Traits Found in Highly Religious People published by Mark Travers Ph.D. on the popular psychology website PsychologyToday.com. Afterward, I will analyze the scholarly article published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology upon which the PsychologyToday.com blog post was based. Further, I will reflect the research findings against three personality theories (Neo-Freudian, Social Cognitive, and Humanistic) and address how these theories could provide an alternate understanding of the research. And finally, I will close with some application of the personality research to my own life.
“14 Traits Found in Highly Religious People”
14 Traits Found in Highly Religious People focuses on the connections between Big Five personality traits and religiosity. The article provides a bulleted list of each of the Big Five personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience) and their corresponding sixteen sub-straits. Next to each of the sub-traits is a brief statement about whether or not it is associated with religiosity.
The conclusions of the study are summed up with a quote from the researchers:
“Taken together, these results paint a portrait of the connections between the Big Five facets and religiosity that is difficult to interpret, if not confusing” (Travers, 2020).
In the past, extensive research has been performed in the field of religious psychology and personality. But very few strong correlations have been established (Grosling et al, 2020, pg. 1). Even in this latest robust research upon which Travers is reporting, the findings are, as the author states, “murky” (Travers, 2020). Only about half of the Big Five personality sub-traits showed a strong correlation with religiosity. Also, the data was more conclusive in more religious countries than more secular nations such as those in Central and Western Europe bringing into question the extent to which social conformity plays on religiosity.
Despite the level of certainty displayed in the click-worthy article title, the very question central to this research remains unanswered: is there a correlation between the Big Five personality traits and religiosity?
Other questions arise too: Why did the connections between personality and religion differ based on the religiosity of the cultural environment? How does social environment affect the manifestation of personality traits associated with religiosity? And finally, since religions can differ greatly in both their underlying philosophies and behavioral manifestations, how do varying theological characteristics correlate with personality in faith practitioners?
Digging Deeper
Big Five Facets & Religiosity: Three Large-Scale, Cross-cultural, Theory-driven, and Process-Attentive Tests is the work of Samuel D. Gosling from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Melbourne in collaboration with Theresa M. Entringer, Jennifer Eck, Peter J. Rentfrow, Jochen E. Gebaur, Wiebke Bleidon, and Jeff Potter. The stated purpose of the study is to fill the gaps in the existing research regarding the relationship between the Big Five personality facets and religiosity.
As Gosling et al state, “most recent research on personality and religiosity has focused on the Big Five personality domains [italics mine]” (Gosling et al, 2020, pg. 2). However, scientists have divided the five commonly known Big Five personality domains (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) into sixteen sub-traits. These 16 sub-traits are referred to as Big Five facets. As the researchers explain, “previous research on the association between the Big Five facets [italics mine] has been sparse and, by current standards, small-scale (Gosling et al, 2020, pg. 2).
Further, previous research appears not to include data from a variety of cultures, does not include currently accepted theories of religious psychology, and fails to consider the effect of psychological processes related to personality (called the Big Five nuances) in their analysis. Therefore, the purpose of Gosling et al’s three-part study was to address the gaps; as the title suggests, with a “large-scale, cross-cultural, theory-driven, and process-attentive” approach to determining the connection between Big Five personality facets and religiosity.
Gosling et al seek to answer this question with three separate studies. In all three cases, the data came from the Gosling-Potter Internet Personality Project (GPPIP) (Renfrow et al 2008) collected from winter 1998 through spring 2015. The GPIPP comprised a series of internet surveys of over 2.2 million participants in 96 countries.
Participants first completed the Big Five Inventory Personality Test (BFI) followed by the Single Item Religiosity Scale (SIRS) test wherein the participant was asked to answer the question: “I see myself as someone who is very religious.” To control for self-reporting bias, the second study included data from informant-surveys; meaning that the participant was asked to comment on the personality and religiosity of a close friend or workmate. Finally, in the third study, the researchers tested for the influence of culture on an individual’s religiosity at the state and city level to capture a cross-cultural approach.
Theoretical Considerations for Researching Religiosity & Personality
When formulating their hypotheses for the studies, the research differentiated between two commonly accepted theories of religiosity; Gordon Allport’s Expressiveness perspective (EP) and the more recent sociocultural motives perspective (SMP). The EP suggests that “the behavioral expression of one’s personality is affectively rewarding…behaving in line with one’s personality elicits the positive feeling of authenticity” (Gosling et al, 2020, pg. 4)). Therefore, Gosling et al predict, “four facets should predict religiosity, because religiosity allows — even encourages — believers to express those facets.”
Based on the EP, religiosity would be strongly connected to altruism and compliance (sub-traits of the Big Five’s Agreeableness domain, self-discipline (a sub-trait of the Conscientiousness domain), and traditionalism (a sub-trait of Openness). In the SMP, “some personality traits elicit the tendency to “swim with the sociocultural tide” (Gosing et al, 2020, pg.). Based on the SMP, the researchers hypothesized that those high in the sub-traits of communion and honesty would show high religiosity in religious countries and low levels of religiosity in secular countries.
As Travers states in 14 Traits Found in Highly Religious People, the results were indeed “murky”. However, two significant findings resulted from Gosling et al’s extensive three-part study. The first is that, despite the lengths to which the research team went to design a large-scale study that would fill the theoretical and analytical gaps of previous research, the Big Five personality facets were again shown to have minimal impact on religiosity. Further, religiosity does not appear to show a strong correlation with Big Five personality traits at the sub-trait level any more so than at the domain level.
The Big Five personality facets were again shown to have minimal impact on religiosity.
It’s All About Where You Live
The second significant finding is that the Big Five facets “explained 4.6 times more religiosity variance in the most religious places than in the least religious places”. The conclusion of this finding is that the SMP was by far a greater predictor of Big Five facet influence upon religiosity when studied across cultures. Personality traits that predispose one to either sociocultural assimilation or sociocultural contrast will appear as differing levels of religiosity in the individual depending on the religiosity of the individual’s environment. Interestingly, personality traits associated with sociocultural contrast could be seen in at least three different ways in an individual’s religious expression; “by being nonreligious (religious) in religious (secular) cultures, but also by being extremely religious (extremely non-religious) in religious (secular) countries or by joining a religion that differs from the most prevalent religion in one’s culture” (Gosling et al, 2020 p.26).
While no outstanding insights appeared from the three studies conducted, the researchers modestly addressed their conclusions by stating that the Big Five facets did not explain much variance in religiosity and did not do so any more significantly that did the Big Five domains. They offer a robust and extensive analysis of the research and present a balanced interpretation of the results.
Limitations of the Research
The study appears to be based on a theoretical assumption that could be at the root of the inconclusive findings. The researchers start from the foundation that religiosity, like personality traits, is based on components of an individual’s genetic makeup. This implies that personality traits are fixed units of an individual’s expression and that religiosity is a preditermined condition of human psychology.
However, religiosity could also been seen as a system of cognitive constructs and the behavioral outcomes proliferated by such cognitions. Additionally, from a socio-psychological perspective, religiosity comprises cognitive schemas and a prescribed system of societal norms. Seen as such, religiosity is the reflection of an individual’s psychological processes within the bounds of the given cognitive framework (religious ideology) and societal norms (ceremony, morality), and the influence of such forces on an individual’s behavioral outcomes (performance of religious rites).
A more fruitful approach to this scientific exploration would be to investigate the effects of the Big Five facets on religious behavior (Prayer, ritual, congregating, proselytizing, ministering/volunteering, etc.). By doing so, researchers would avoid the tendency to view religiosity with its historically supernatural connotation and the connected assumption that religiosity is a fixed psychological unit that can be isolated in an individual.
A further weakness of this study is the use of the SIRS. The prompt, “I would consider myself a very religious person” is highly reductive and does not account for the varying interpretation of the elusive spiritual experience of homo sapiens. While many make the mistake of lumping the world’s great faiths under the umbrella term “religion”, the philosophical underpinnings of the many branches of religion differ profoundly. The moralistic and prescriptive Abrahamic faiths differ greatly from the fluid mysticism of eastern religion. When reflected against the dissimilar philosophies and normative expectations of the world’s religious faiths, an individual’s biological predispositions for behavior are likely to appear quite different. As the SMP suggests, personality traits manifest themselves through the filter of cognitive schemas and societal norms.
14 Traits Found in Highly Religious People over-simplified the findings of Gosling et al’s research. While the article did emphasize that the results were inconclusive, the article does not address much of the detail that the research team felt was of significant interest. Although the research does not give a simple answer to “what kind of personality types do religious people have?” (implied by the rather click-worthy title of the article), it does provide valuable conclusions that will inform further research into the topic in the future.
I am concerned about the realities of confirmation bias in the lives of those who hold strong opinions about religion. This includes not only the religious but also those who maintain a religion-like opposition to religious belief. The article represents an attempt to create overly simplistic content on a blog rather than communicate to the meaningful understanding of readers. Readers of polarized opinion regarding religion will interpret this article as proof of their side of a very divisive argument. The PsychologyToday.com article was formatted with bullet lists of quickly accessible information; a format commonly referred to as a “listicle”. But Gosling et al’s exhaustive research study does not lend itself to such a reductive format. As Gosling et al state, “religiosity is consequential”. The listicle format in the PsychologyToday.com post is misleading and misrepresents the most significant implications of the research.
Reaction to the Research From 3 Theoretical Perspectives
In the following section, I will analyze the above research and PsychologyToday.com article in the light of three influential theories of personality: Neo-Freudian, Social Cognitive, and Humanist.
Theory 1: Neo-Freudian
As the name suggests, Neo-freudian personality theory is based on the theories of the direct followers of Sigmund Freud. The work of theorists like Carl Jung and Karen Horney’s were largely a reaction to and extrapolation of Freud’s ideas. Like their predecessor, Neo-Freudian thinkers emphasized the role of childhood experiences in determining adult behavior but deemphasized sexual urges (Jung) and gave more consideration to feminist perspectives (Horney).
Neo-Freudian theory centers on the concept of psychological conflict. Based on Freud’s interpretation of the id, superego, and ego, an individual is constantly balancing inner sexual urges so as to present effectively in a civilized society. Erik Erikson too highlighted the psychological conflict and the cultivation of values to resolve such mental discomfort. Individuals often use defense mechanisms to restore the ego’s balance of the id and superego.
Religiosity and religious ritual often serve as a defense mechanism to avoid subconscious neuroticism and fear. For example, religious devotees often use denial to escape the harsh realities of their own mortality and meet the challenge of finding purpose in life. Denying the painful awareness of death, religious theories of afterlife are created to resolve the individual’s uncomfortable feelings. In another defense mechanism, projection, those high in religiosity may equate what they consider to be errant sexual desires with the existence an evil god or devil. Projection of the latent sexual energy upon religious opposers may result.
Religiosity may also play a part in the resolution of psychological conflict according to Erikson’s stages of psychological development. Religious belief and ritualistic behavior are often used by individuals to quell the psychological experience of shame and doubt (stage 2), guilt (stage 3), and despair (stage 8). Further, Horney felt that “the aim of compulsive drives is not to satisfy sexual instincts but to provide safety from feelings of isolation, helplessness, fear, and hostility” (Allen 2016). Religious belief is often used as a way of escaping such feelings. When the religion is prescriptive, the compulsive behaviors that pacify the uncomfortable psychological behaviors manifest as the ritualistic and repetitive rites of prescriptive religions.
Neo-Freudian theories did not include the Big Five personality traits, as behavior was seen to be largely out of the control of the conscious mind, driven by subconscious processes. Applying this fundamental approach to Gosling et al’s research could help us understand why no meaningful connection between personality and religion has been discovered.
Theory 2: Social Cognitive
Central to the social cognitive theory is that “personality cannot be considered apart from the social situation in which it unfolds” (Allen 2016). The social cognitive theory was built upon the work of George Kelly’s constructive alternativism (Kelly, 1963) which stated that an individual applies cognitive constructs to any given situation to determine their behavior. Cognitive constructs can be altered over time or can shuffle in the importance bestowed upon them in the psyche.
Gosling et al’s findings in support of the SMP of religion harmonize with the social cognitive theory of personality. The cross-cultural study of religiosity found that the correlation of personality traits like agreeableness, extroversion, and conscientiousness with religiosity depended on the social environment of the individual. An individual might have a low openness to agreement. If they are in a religious environment, that might mean being irreligious or joining a minority religious group. Conscientiousness in the form of self-discipline would be manifested quite differently in someone in a strict religious environment and one who lives in a secular society.
Further, Gosling et al cite research demonstrating that personality traits remain over time. This could mean that as an individual’s religious opinions change, based on new insights or experience, a personality trait that was previously applied in a religious setting would furthermore be manifest in a non-religious aspect of life. However, the social cognitive theory does not support such rigidity of personality across the lifespan. According to Mishel and Rotter’s ideas, if taken out of a very religious context, an individual’s observable personality could very well change.
Theory 3: Humanist
Humanist theory is an extension of the existential philosophers of the mid-20th century. Humanist psychology focuses on the individual in the here and now rather than placing a lot of emphasis on an individual’s childhood. The theory is based on the premise that all humans have the potential for a positive, upbuilding inner experience, and that each human has the task to manifest such constructive qualities by accessing the fullness of their potential self.
Humanist Psychologist Carl Rogers
Humanist theorist, Carl Roger’s client-centered approach focused on connecting as a fellow human with each client that entered his office. He viewed his role as that of a mirror for the client to reflect their self-concept against. He didn’t view himself as above his client and focused on being his most genuine and congruent self in his practice as a way of engendering the client toward similar authenticity (Rogers, 1995, p. 27).
Given the fact that humanist theory focuses on the client self-defining their path to success based on a personal understanding of their potential, spirituality finds its place in humanist theory as a catalyst for healing self-expression. The humanist would see religiosity as a step toward self-actualization and a way for an individual to maximize their well-being. Because all individuals are humans with unique potential, and not disordered or broken in some way as Freud suggested, humanists focus more on an individual’s path toward actualization rather than whether inherent and ubiquitous traits predispose one to any behavior such as religiosity.
Humanist theory further adds perspective to the EP approach to religion. Humanism is concerned with the congruence of emotional experience and the ability to manifest authentically in daily life. Similarly, in the EP, the pleasant sensation of expressing genuine feeling is seen as a reason for pursuing religious expression. But as the SMP suggests, depending on the religiosity of the environment, an individual may find a means of cathartic spiritual expression in either a religious or secular context.
Personal Reflection
Understanding someone’s religious psychology is fundamental to creating an intimate relationship with them. In counseling psychology, religious belief can be a confounding factor in a client’s journey out of psychological distress and toward self-actualization. As I pursue a career as a psychotherapist, I know how important it will be for me to comprehend how personality traits and religiosity converge to impact an individual’s mental wellbeing.
This study has confirmed my previous understanding that religiosity does not have a strong correlation with personality traits. Personality trait theory, like religiosity, appears to be a theory that limits the elasticity of the human mind and the potential for human actualization. As the cross-cultural study suggests, supported by the social cognitive theory of personality, religious expression is heavily impacted by an individual’s cultural environment. Therefore, an individual’s religiosity is based mainly on their reaction to societal norms rather than on an inner predisposition to illusory belief. As discussed earlier, and borne out by the research, individuality will find a way of expressing itself within the cognitive and social frameworks within which it dwells, be that religion or otherwise.
Religion is often a source of bias and prejudice in the world. Religious affiliation, like any other ideological label, is a means of categorizing the world that many cling to bring some order into their understanding of the universe. However, the reluctance to think with infinite complexity in favor of oversimplifying matters contributes to much division in the world.
While historically not as divisive as religiosity, personality theory can reduce the infinite variabilities of human psychology to a set of traits and sub-traits. Seeing the world of human psychology through this lens is simple and easy, but reductive.
Based on personal experience, it appears that religiosity has a way of altering personality in the short term. Often, after acquiring a newfound set of beliefs and behavioral boundaries, appear to take on a new persona. Some in cultlike groups lose much individuality as they conform their psychology (and therefore personality) to that of the group. Conversely, personality may change when religious beliefs are deconstructed. Maturing away from the naivete of religious belief and no longer using faith-based delusions as defense mechanisms for avoiding psychological conflict can also result in noticeable personality change. On the other hand, it is possible that an individual assumes a new religious ideology while showing very little behavioral change. This appears to confound the whole situation bringing into question the permanence of both religiosity and personality.
I have experienced the rapid wholescale dissolution of religious faith. Such an immediate and ferocious collapse of a cognitive construction system (Kelley, 1963) as intricate as the totalist religious doctrine to which I clung induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Religious Trauma Syndrome (Winell, 2017) brings deep despair to many and holds the potential to alter an individual’s psychology profoundly. The question remains if the post-religious liberation personality is permanently changed to the extent demonstrable on a personality test such as the BFI.
Regardless, a humanistic therapeutic approach does not require the maintenance of religiosity or personality traits in the evolution of the self-concept. I hope to treat clients with such an approach as a practicing psychotherapist. With this transcendent goal of manifesting the unique and fully actualized self of a client, both religiosity and personality trait theory become minutia.
It is crucial for the scientist to stand apart from both supernatural thinking (religiosity) and enlightenment era mind-body dualism (personality trait theory). We must not personify consciousness with a spirit, soul, or personality but rather see it for what it is: a force emitting from our material brain. Our psychology is the interaction of our biological organism and the material world. Our genes, environmental factors, cognitive schemas, and neurological conditions converge to produce behavior. Personality is an observer phenomenon, subject to bias from both the self-reporter and that of the observer.
References:
Allen, B. P. (2016). Moving toward, away from, and against others: Karen Horney, Chapter 5. Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity: Vol. Fifth edition. Psychology Press.
Allen, B. P. (2016). The seasons of our lives: Eric Erikson, Chapter 7. Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity: Vol. Fifth edition. Psychology Press.
Allen, B. P. (2016). The social–cognitive approach to personality: Walter Mischel and Julian Rotter, Chapter 12. Personality theories: Development, growth, and diversity: Vol. Fifth edition. Psychology Press.
Rogers, C. R. (1995). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Entringer, T. M., Gebauer, J. E., Eck, J., Bleidorn, W., Rentfrow, P. J., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2020). Big Five facets and religiosity: Three large-scale, cross-cultural, theory-driven, and process-attentive tests. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Kelly, G., Kelly, G. A., & Kelly, G. A. (1963). A theory of personality: The psychology of personal constructs (№152). WW Norton & Company.
Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). A Theory of the Emergence, Persistence, and Expression of Geographic Variation in Psychological Characteristics. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(5), 339–369. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00084.x
Travers, Mark. (2020, November 26). 14 Traits found in highly religious people. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-instincts/202011/14-traits-found-in-highly-religious-people
Winell, M. (2017). Religious trauma syndrome. British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies.
