Research Note: Personality and Religion Among Secondary School Pupils in South Africa in the Early 1990S

Abstract

AbstractThe short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was completed by 453 white English-speaking secondary school pupils in South Africa during the early 1990s, together with the Francis scale of attitude toward Christianity. The findings are consistent with those from a series of studies employing the same measure of religiosity among school pupils and adults in the UK. According to these findings there is an inverse relationship between psychoticism and religiosity, while neither neuroticism nor extraversion is either positively or negatively related to religiosity. These findings are discussed in terms of Eysenck's theory relating personality to social attitudes and in light of discrepant findings proposed by other studies conducted among adult samples. Replication is now recommended within the new educational framework of South Africa.