The religiosity-psychoticism relationship and the two factors of social desirability: A response to Michael W. Eysenck (1999)

Abstract

Eysenck [(1998) Personality and the psychology of religion, Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 1, 11-19 ] suggested that the relationship between religiosity and personality may be ‘contaminated’ by social desirability as assessed by the Lie Scale. However, Lewis [(1999) Is the relationship between religiosity and personality ‘contaminated’ by social desirability as assessed by the Lie Scale? Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 2, 105-114 ] found no empirical support for this claim. In response, Eysenck [(1999) A response to Christopher Alan Lewis, Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 2, 115-116 ] suggests that it may be important to consider separately the two factors of social desirability, that of ‘self-deception’ and ‘other-deception’, when examining the religiosity‐psychoticism relationship. To examine this suggestion, the Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity was administered alongside the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised— Abbreviated, which contains a measure of ‘other-deception’ and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale, which contains a measure of ‘self-deception’, among a sample of 156 Northern Irish students. As predicted, a significant association was found between higher scores on the Francis Scale and lower scores on the Psychoticism Scale. Moreover, this finding remained statistically significant even after the Lie Scale scores and the Edwards Preference Scale scores were statistically partialled out, either separately or in combination. The present findings support the view that the association between religiosity and the personality trait of psychoticism is not simply a function of either type of social desirability.