User:Abbigail Ely/sandbox/newsandbox

= Religion and Personality = Overall, when the research on religiosity and personality is summarized, there doesn't appear to be a strong link between the two. While there is research to suggest that religiosity is a modest relationship between mental ability and religiosity, mental ability is not considered an aspect of personality. It appears that, rather than by personality, religiosity is better explained by environment and upbringing, such that people are likely to maintain the beliefs of the household they grew up in. Research on religiosity is also limited in that much psychological research is biased to Western populations, and therefore research on religiosity and personality may also be skewed towards Western religions. -Ash Worley (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Five-Factor Model
The five-factor model of personality is currently accepted as a comprehensive model of personality. The five-factor model (FFM) identifies five broad traits underlying the many, more narrow facets that together can be used to describe personality. The identified traits are:


 * Extraversion, outgoing, talkative, and sociable vs. reserved, shy, and withdrawn.


 * Neuroticism, anxious, moody, and sensitive vs. relaxed and stable.


 * Conscientiousness, organized, thorough, and precise vs. disorderly, careless, and unreliable.


 * Agreeableness, cooperative, kind, and gentle vs. rude, harsh, and cold.


 * Openness to Experience, unconventional, innovative, and complex vs. shallow, uninquisitive, and simple.

A review of studies examined the relations between the FFM and measures of religiosity, spiritual maturity, religious fundamentalism, and extrinsic religion. General religiosity was mainly related to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness of the big five traits. The same was found in a second review, which also noted that the relationship was consistent across different dimensions of religiosity, different cultures, and different measures of the Big Five. The relationship, however, appeared to be weaker in young adults than the rest of the adult population. Additionally, there was a weak positive correlation with extraversion, and a very small but significant relationship with low openness to experience. This same study also found that the two different concepts of religiosity and spirituality both involve an overall compassionate attitude towards others and positively correlates with agreeableness. Open, mature religiosity and spirituality were associated with high openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and with low neuroticism. Religious fundamentalism was associated with higher agreeableness, and lower neuroticism and lower openness to experience. Because of these factors, it was also seen that more religious people seem to be altruistic and more well behaved. However, this correlation is pretty small. It is not known if religious people tend to be better behaved or if better behaved people are more attracted to religion. Extrinsic religiosity was associated with higher neuroticism but unrelated to the other personality factors. Levels of Neuroticism among religiousness vary, with European samples exhibiting higher Neuroticism, which was speculated to be a cause of the dominance of Catholicism in these samples. All of these relationships between personality and religion were small. This finding does not necessarily support the concept of personality for being the specific reason for religiosity, however this correlation with the FFM can lead to more in depth research on the topic.

Strengths and Weaknesses
As previously stated, one of the major strengths for using the FFM to study religiosity in people is that it is empirically tested, and how accurate the measure actually is in accordance to personality.[10] Another strength is that the big five is an excellent starting point for beginning to look at links between personality and religiosity because it is simply laid out. While this is a huge strength, some research argues that its downfall lies in that it is solely a personality indicator, and is not compatible with religious or spiritual matters. For example, in another study that investigated the correlation between religiosity and the FFM, a conclusion was drawn that religiosity and/or spirituality should be made into a sixth personality factor in order to truly make research using this model accurate.[11] Additionally, religiousness is related to personality traits not encompassed by the FFM. As more advances in research using the FFM to study religiosity and spirituality come, there will be a clearer cut answer as to whether there is a significant place for the FFM in studying religious behavior.

-Ash Worley (talk) 21:47, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory is a psychological theory that says that infants form relationships with their caregivers and, different types of attachment have impacts on an individual's attachment style, personality, and future relationships.

In attachment theory, there have been four attachment styles identified:


 * secure attachment — confidence in the availability of attachment figures during times of need


 * anxious-avoidant attachment — insecurity and lack of trust in the ability of others to care for one's needs


 * anxious-ambivalent attachment — view of others as being reluctant to get close to oneself


 * disorganized/disoriented attachment — mixed, contradictory behaviors towards caregiver

Secure attachments are believed to have positive outcomes for individuals' personality and future relationships. Disrupted attachment styles are believed to be related to disordered personalities, antisocial behaviors, and life-course persistent criminal behaviors. Attachment theory is also thought to be related to religiosity, because a relationship with God can mirror relationships with an adult attachment figure. Additionally, much like Attachment Theory suggests with separation from caregivers, a sense of separation from God can invoke similar distress.

The research varies in explaining which type of attachment style yields the individual's particular relationship with God. For example, in one study, a secure relationship with one's parents will translate into a secure attachment to God, and vice versa. One theory, the correspondence pathway, suggests that individual differences in attachment style lead to differences in religious beliefs, such that an individual with an insecure attachment might be led to agnosticism or atheism, and others with insecure attachments may develop extremely emotional, dependent relationships with God. However, other research has showed that there is a compensatory effect, or the need of people to make up for something that is lacking. For instance, someone with an insecure attachment style with their parents may in turn, have a very secure, and confident relationship with God.

Strengths and weaknesses
Research suggests that there could be links between attachment theory and religiosity, but it is not yet clear the precise mechanisms behind it. Additionally, more research is needed to determine any links between attachment theory, religiosity, and personality. Ash Worley (talk) 19:42, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Religiosity and paranormal belief

 * According to Thalbourne, evidence suggests that people who are religious tend to have paranormal beliefs. One explanation for this is possibly due to trying to reduce anxiety about death.
 * Research conducted by Thalbourne, Dunbar, and Delin, found Conscientiousness and Neuroticism may be a predictor of paranormal beliefs. Furthermore, Aarnio and Lindeman conducted research to confirm the relationship between religion and paranormal beliefs. One of their findings was that individuals who were believers were more neurotic than skeptics. However, it is possible this is due to the type of religion an individual belongs to. (Abbigail Ely (talk) 22:32, 14 March 2020 (UTC))

Other personality characteristics related to religiosity
While some traits from the Big Five have been correlated to religiousness, the five factor model does not encompass all known personality traits. Traits such as femininity and conservatism have both been linked to religiousness, such that those who scored higher on religiousness were likely to also score higher on femininity and conservatism. The opposite was found for traits relating to sexual expression, such as eroticism, sexiness, and sensuality, such that individuals scoring higher on religiosity were likely to score low on these factors of sexuality. Humorousness has also been negatively correlated with religiousness, with individuals that scored higher on religiousness scoring lower on humorousness. Many of these links between traits and religiosity have not been looked at on a larger scale, however, and may not replicate in future research. Additionally, these links do not reveal causal, such that a certain trait level or a certain level of religiosity causes a change in the other, but rather that certain levels tend to coexist for reasons not yet known.

HEXACO
While the Big Five is the most commonly used model of personality, newer research suggests that the HEXACO model may be an improvement on the Big Five. The HEXACO model makes slight changes to the factors of the Big Five, but most notably adds the trait honesty-humility, which captures an individual's levels of honesty, humility, sincerity, greed-avoidance, and modesty. Religiousness has been positively correlated to honesty-humility, such that individuals who score higher on religiousness were also likely to score higher on honesty-humility. It is unclear, however, if these results have been replicated by other studies.

Religious struggles and Personality
Several studies have also suggested that people higher in Neuroticism tend to have a more negative relationship with God.

Agreeableness and Conscientiousness have been linked with lower levels of anger with God, Even when controlling for the Big Five, there is evidence to suggest that entitlement, self-esteem, and self-compassion might be able to predict religious struggles. A predictor of divine struggles of entitled people is possibly due to their tendency to feel victimized and angry, thus they may not have a positive relationship with God. High levels of self-esteem and self-compassion may have a link with positive spiritual well-being. Over time, this should translate to less moral and religious struggles. However, lower levels of self-esteem and compassion have been associated with more religious struggles.

While certain findings have indicated that personality may predispose some individuals to religious struggles, the findings are weak. There is also no research on how personality is affected by religion over time. (Abbigail Ely (talk) 22:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC))