Religion and the five factors of personality: a meta-analytic review

Abstract

An impression based on a vote-counting method of reviewing studies on religion and personality is that religiosity is associated only with low Psychoticism (or high Agreeableness and Conscientiousness), while unrelated to the other Eysenck's or Big Five factors. This meta-analytic review of studies on religion and the Five Factor Model revealed that, in addition to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, religiosity (today?) is related to Extraversion. Interestingly, while Openness is negatively related to religious fundamentalism (weighted mean r=-0.14, P <0.01) and, to some extent, intrinsic-general religiosity (r=-0.06, P <0.01), it is positively related to measures of open or mature religiosity and spirituality (r=0.22, P <0.0001). The meta-analysis also indicated that extrinsic religiosity is followed by high Neuroticism, whereas open-mature religiosity and spirituality reflect Emotional Stability. Finally, overall, the effect sizes were small. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.