The Relationship between Personality and Religion among Undergraduate Students in Germany

Abstract

A sample of 311 undergraduate students in Germany completed German translations of the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire together with the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data demonstrated that psychoticism is fundamental to individual differences in religiosity, while religiosity is independent of both extraversion and neuroticism. These findings are consistent with those from a series of studies employing the same measure of religiosity among school pupils, students and adults in the UK.

Religious affect among adolescents in a multi-faith society: the role of personality and religious identity

“…According to the beta weights, within the overall system the two Eysenckian variables that made a significant contribution to positive religious affect were low psychoticism scores (tendermindedness) and high lie scale scores (social conformity). These two findings are consistent with a broader literature on the association between the Eysenckian dimensional model of personality and religious affect (Francis, Lewis, Brown, Philipchalk, & Lester, 1995). In this sense personality is important.…”

“…The research tradition proposed by Francis (1978aFrancis ( , 1978b has been operationalised through a series of instruments, including the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis, Lewis, Philipchalk, Brown, & Lester, 1995), the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam (Sahin & Francis, 2002), the KatzFrancis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism (Francis & Katz, 2007), the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism (Francis, Santosh, Robbins, & Vij, 2008) and the Astley-Francis scale of Attitude toward Theistic Faith (Astley, Francis, & Robbins, in press). By the mid 1990s Kay and Francis (1996) drew together the findings from around a hundred studies that had employed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity.…”

“…Given the apparent significance of religious affect in predicting a range of positive personal and social outcomes, the aim of the present study is to examine the relative strengths of four predictors of individual differences in the direction and The Eysenckian dimensional model of personality was employed in the present study in the light of the significant body of research initially established during the 1990s that demonstrated the significant link between personality and individual differences in religiosity (Francis, Lewis, Brown, Philipchalk, & Lester, 1995) and the key role psychoticism (both theoretically and empirically) in shaping this link between personality and religiosity (Francis, 1992). In its current form the Eysenckian dimensional model of personality defines three higher-order orthogonal dimensions styled by the high-scoring poles as extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1991).…”

Personality and religion among female university students in France

“…A third set of studies has employed the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity alongside the Eysenck measures of personality among students and adults, including studies in England and Wales (Bourke & Francis, 2000;Bourke, Francis, & Robbins, 2005;Carter, kay, & Francis, 1996;Francis, 1991Francis, , 1993Francis & Bennett, 1992;Fearn, Lewis, & Francis, 2003;, Australia and Canada , Germany (Francis, Ziebertz, & Lewis, 2003), Northern Ireland (Lewis & Joseph, 1994), Republic of Ireland (Maltby & Lewis, 1997), the United States of America (Lewis & Maltby, 1995), and Greece (youtika, Joseph, & Diduca, 1999). Once again the basic pattern was confirmed that attitude toward Christianity was negatively correlated with psychoticism, but unrelated to either extraversion or neuroticism, supporting the view that psychoticism is the dimension of personality fundamental to individual differences in religiosity.…”

Cattell's personality model and attitude toward Christianity

“…For example, within the UK, such studies have involved a wide range of ages, including 8-to 10-year-old pupils (Robbins, Francis, & Gibbs, 1995), 11-year-old pupils (Francis, Lankshear, & Pearson, 1989), 12-to 15-year-old pupils (Kay, 1981), and adults (Francis & Bennett, 1992). Research has also been conducted in a number of other countries, including Australia and Canada , the Republic of Ireland (Maltby, 1997), the USA (Lewis & Maltby, 1995), and Germany (Francis, Ziebertz, & Lewis, 2003). The result of these studies has been to show clearly that attitude toward Christianity is significantly negatively related to psychoticism but unrelated to either extraversion or neuroticism.…”