Most scientists agree that religiosity (also called religiousness) is not an independent personality trait, despite there being some commonality between their characteristics.[1][2] Religiosity and personality traits both relate to one's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.[2] However, unlike for personality, one's level of religiosity is often measured by the presence or lack of belief in and relationship with a higher power, certain lifestyles or behaviors adopted for a higher power, and a sense of belonging with other followers of one's religion.[2] Additionally, personality traits tend to follow a normal distribution, such that the majority of individuals' scores for a personality trait will be concentrated towards the middle, rather than being extremely high or low. Distributions for religiosity, however, follow a non-normal distribution, such that there are more individuals who score particularly high or low on religiosity scales.[2]
Examining religiosity as it relates to personality characteristics could provide an empirical way to study a difficult concept. Over time, the act of being religious has been a consistent behavior across almost every culture, which could suggest that personality is related to religiosity. With the use of modern, empirically tested personality measures, researchers can look for links and obtain quantitative results to provide insight into how and why religion is such an important element of being human.[3]
Overall, when the research on religiosity and personality is summarized, there does not appear to be a strong link between the two.[2] While there is research to suggest that there is a modest relationship between mental ability and religiosity, mental ability is not considered an aspect of personality.[2] It appears that, rather than by personality, religiosity is better explained by environment and upbringing, such that people are likely to maintain the beliefs of the household they grew up in.[2] Research on religiosity is also limited in that much psychological research is biased to Western populations, and therefore research on religiosity and personality may also be skewed towards Western religions.
^Ashton, Michael C (2007). Individual Differences and Personality. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Academic Press. pp. 260–267. ISBN 9780123741295.
^ abcdefgAshton, Michael (2018). Individual Differences and Personality (3rd ed.). Elselvier. pp. 30, 304–305. ISBN 978-0-12-809845-5.
^Saroglou, Vassilis (2014). Religion, Personality, and Social Behavior. New York: Psychology Press.
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