Personality and Religion

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Personality and Religion
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Personality and religious constructs

• Religiosity and spirituality have no universally
  accepted definitions.
• However, these constructs are defined, they are
  essentially individual difference variables
  (Piedmont, 2005).
• Religious and spiritual constructs reflect many
  of the same qualities of traditional personality
  variables
• Being intrinsic to the person.
• Motivational in nature.
• Providing consistency in behaviour across
  situations.

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Personality and religious constructs

• To the extent that religious and spiritual
  variables are independent of personality traits,
  then the development of these constructs can be
  used to expand the predictive relevance of these
  theories.

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Personological approaches to understanding
numinous constructs object relations

• Object relations is an approach to understanding
  how personality plays a role in
  religious/spiritual development.
• Object relations developed from Freuds work with
  psychoanalysis centred on those psychic processes
  by which individuals introject environmental
  objects (e.g., parents) into their psychic world.
• Object relations theory is naturally conducive to
  understanding religious/spiritual motivation
  because at the centre of each is a search for
  some relationship to the transcendent.

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Object relations

• The dynamic interplay between parent and child
  creates the template for the childs introjection
  of numerous objects, including one for God
  (Rizzuto, 1979).
• The God image is a transitional object in that it
  is a psychic symbol that the person can draw upon
  to navigate problems at a particular stage of
  development (Rizzuto, 1979).
• The God image, although a transitional object, is
  special in that it makes an ongoing contribution
  to the quality of an individuals life (Rizzuto,
  1979).

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Object relations strengths and weaknesses

• The practical value of Rizzutos work is that she
  is able to integrate an individuals relationship
  to the numinous within the context of a widely
  accepted and clinically applied theoretical
  framework of personality.
• Her formulations provide a very nuanced sense of
  the intrapsychic forces that may create a
  positive or negative sense of religiosity.

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Object relations strengths and weaknesses

• The major weakness of this approach is that it
  relies on aspects of personality that are
  difficult to measure.
• There is much controversy surrounding the
  psychometrics of projective tests, which further
  confounds progress in this area (e.g., Lilienfeld
  et al., 2000).

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Attachment style

• A related approach to understanding how
  personality plays a role in religious/spiritual
  development is attachment style.
• This approach is less directly tied to
  psychoanalytic theory and therefore employs a
  measurement model more conducive to quantitative
  research (Brennan et al., 1998).

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Attachment style

• Bowlby (1973) proposed that the patterns and
  qualities of early relationships with caregivers
  have important implications for how adults come
  to organise their thoughts, feelings, and
  behaviours in other close relationships.
• Kirkpatrick (1998) has extended this line of work
  to include an individuals relationship to, and
  image of, God.
• An individuals relationship with God corresponds
  with attachment style (e.g., secure individuals
  see God as comforting and secure, avoidant
  individuals avoid relationships with God).

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Attachment style

• Over time attachment styles were shown to predict
  an individuals relationship with God.
• Anxious insecure types were the most likely to
  find a new relationship with God that was more
  emotionally stable and secure.
• Those with most fragile styles actively sought a
  close relationship with a deity rather than
  evidencing their more customary pattern of
  interpersonal detachment.

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Attachment style strengths and weaknesses

• From an evolutionary perspective, finding a
  species wide survival value to attachment
  processes opens the door for understanding
  spiritual and religious constructs as basic
  qualities of human existence.
• Attachment style involves a more quantitative
  method for measuring constructs.
• So many instruments available they may not be
  assessing the same construct.

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Attachment style strengths and weaknesses

• Findings not always consistent.
• The bewildering array of findings makes new
  investigations difficult.

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Eysencks Biological Typology

• Eysenck (1967) identified two neurological
  structures that were responsible for personality
  styles (neuroticism and extraversion).
• The ascending reticular activating system (ARAS),
  located in the lower brain stem, regulates levels
  of physiological arousal.
• The visceral brain activation (VBA), which
  includes the limbic system and hypothalamus,
  regulates affect.

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Eysencks Biological Typology

• Extraversion moderated by the level of ARAS
  activation with extraverts having lower levels
  of arousal.
• Individuals high on neuroticism exhibited more
  activity on the VBA than those lower in
  neuroticism.
• Later Eysenck included the dimension of
  psychoticism.

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Eysencks Biological Typology

• The three-dimensional biological model generated
  much research interest within the psychology of
  religion.
• Generally, the findings demonstrate that low
  psychoticism is linked to greater levels of
  religiosity (e.g., Lewis Maltby, 1995).

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Key Papers

• Lewis, C.A. (2000). The religiosity-psychoticism
  relationship and the two factors of social
  desirability A response to Michael W. Eysenck
  (1999). Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 3,
  39-45. (ISSN 1367-4676)
• Lewis, C.A. (1999). Is the relationship between
  religiosity and personality contaminated by
  social desirability as assessed by the Lie Scale?
  A methodological reply to Michael W. Eysenck
  (1998). Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 2,
  105-114. (ISSN 1367-4676)

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Eysencks Biological Typology strengths and
weaknesses

• Eysencks pioneering work has been extended to
  research on religious and spiritual constructs.
• This area of research hold promise for
• Documenting the nuerophysiological basis of
  numinous constructs.
• Outlining the adaptive pressures that led to the
  development of spiritual strivings.
• Providing new insights into enhancing spiritual
  strivings through chemical interventions.

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Eysencks Biological Typology strengths and
weaknesses

• Eysencks model may not provide an exhaustive
  listing of all aspects of personality (Costa
  McCrae, 1995).
• Eysenck never considered religiosity in his work.
• Advances in brain chemistry and anatomy have
  indicated that there are limitations to the
  theorys ability to explain certain
  brain-behaviour links.

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Cloningers unified biosocial theory

• In an effort to integrate information from
  diverse sources Cloninger (1987) sought to
  provide a model of personality that was both
  complete and anchored in specific
  neuropharmacological mechanisms.
• Cloninger et al. (1993) modified the model to
  include three additional character dimensions
  self-directedness, cooperativeness, and
  self-transcendence.
• Character develops out of genetically based
  temperaments, which then structures how the
  individual perceives various stimuli, which in
  turn influences how the individual will
  consistently respond to the stimuli.

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Cloningers unified biosocial theory

• Self-transcendence is defined as reflecting a
  concept of self as an integral part of the
  universe and its source from this self-concept
  are derived feelings of mystical participation,
  religious faith, and unconditional equanimity and
  patience (Cloninger et al., 1994).
• The self-transcendence character dimension breaks
  down into three subscales self-forgetfulness,
  transpersonal identification, and spiritual
  acceptance.
• Spirituality is clearly seen as being an inherent
  physical property of the individual.

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Cloningers unified biosocial theory strengths
and weaknesses

• The work of both Cloninger and Eysenck provides a
  new way of looking at spirituality in ways that
  involve concrete physical mechanisms and
  interprets these processes within an evolutionary
  perspective.
• Such work would help move the level of discussion
  in the field away from denomination-specific
  issues to the identification of salient,
  universal human qualities.

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Cloningers unified biosocial theory strengths
and weaknesses

• Herbst et al. (2000) found no support for
  Cloningers hypothesis that temperaments are
  genetically based.
• The question arises as to whether spirituality,
  as measured by the Temperament Character
  Inventory (TCI Cloninger et al., 1993) merely
  reflects qualities of personality already
  contained in the Five-Factor Model.
• McCrae et al. (2001) suggested that
  self-transcendence may be a marker for Openness.

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Five-Factor Model

• Over the past 30 years, researchers have
  converged on the existence of five orthogonal
  trait dimensions that constitute an adequate
  taxonomy of personality (Digman, 1990).
• These are Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E),
  Openness (O), Agreeableness (A) and
  Conscientiousness (C).
• These dimensions have a strong genetic basis
  (Heath et al., 1992).

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Five-Factor Model

• Saraglou (2002) found that
• Religiosity was related to dimensions A and C.
• Spiritual maturity was related to all five
  dimensions.
• Extrinsic religion was related to high N.
• Religious fundamentalism was related to O,A,N,
  and E.
• Generally, the research suggests that
  spirituality scales positively correlate with O
  and A, while religious behaviours positively
  correlate with A and C.

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Five-Factor Model

• Although religious constructs share something in
  common with the Five-Factor Model they are not
  redundant.
• Numinous constructs may constitute a sixth
  dimension of personality (Piedmont, 2001).

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Five-Factor Model strengths and weaknesses

• The model is empirically robust and the
  dimensions have been empirically validated as
  being powerful predictors of a wide array of
  psychological outcomes.
• Conceptually, the model can be useful for
  understanding numinous scales (Gorsuch, 1984).
• The model was empirically derived and, as such,
  there is little information concerning the
  aetiology and development of the constructs.

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Five-Factor Model

• Piedmont (1999) identified four ways in which the
  Five-Factor Model could be useful
• Describing motivations of individuals who seek
  religious/spiritual goals.
• Describing the perceived motivational
  characteristics of religious figures.
• Developing the construct validity of numinous
  constructs.
• As an empirical reference point for the
  development of new religious and spiritual
  scales.

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Empirical issues for future research
understanding the personological content of
religious/spiritual scales

• The Five-Factor Model can be used in scale
  development to locate the religious/spiritual
  construct in personality space.

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Establishing the incremental validity of
religious/spiritual scales

• The question arises as to what degree are
  spiritual constructs merely the religification
  of already existing personality constructs.
• Religious/spiritual need to demonstrate that they
  possess predictive power over and above
  established personality constructs.
• The incremental validity paradigm enables
  researchers to identify those individual
  difference qualities unique to religious/spiritual
  constructs that are predictive of psychosocial
  and health outcomes.

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Structural nature of religious/spiritual
constructs

• The lack of conceptual clarity regarding
  religious/spiritual constructs threatens to
  prevent future progress in the field.
• Numinous constructs are frequently conceived of
  as being multidimensional in nature (e.g., Hill
  et al., 2000), although little data exists to
  support this contention.
• Jointly factor analysing personality and numinous
  constructs allows for determination of which
  aspects of spirituality are related to
  personality.
• Regarding the religious/spiritual debate,
  evidence of their discriminant validity needs to
  be presented in order to justify their separate
  usage.

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The causal relationships between the numinous and
the psychological

• Does a persons orientation to the numinous
  develop out of his/her sense of personhood?
• If so, then unhappy people will tend to have
  unhappy relationships with the transcendent.
• If religiosity/spirituality are inputs into our
  psychological systems then they become important
  conduits through which growth and maturity can be
  focussed.

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Spirituality and religiosity as human universals

• The bulk of the research in this area has been
  done in a predominantly Christian context
  (Moberg, 2002).
• This lack of theological pluralism will undermine
  the fields ability to develop comprehensive
  models of spiritual development that have broad
  relevance and ecological validity.
• Researchers need to identify the broad dynamics
  that may be underlying all spiritual quests,
  while also appreciating how culture, context, and
  faith tradition combine to focus how these broad
  dynamics are shaped into specific
  religious/spiritual orientations.