Personality, Spirituality, and Religion

Abstract

The current review explores advances in research linking personality with religion and spirituality. The chapter is organized around five broad principles of personality research that may contribute to the understanding of individual lives: evolution, dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, narrative identity, and culture. First, we examine evolutionary theories of religion and spirituality, and we review informative behavioral genetic studies. Second, we summarize the links between aspects of religion and spirituality with dispositional traits associated with the Big Five (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience) and Big Six (the Big Five traits plus honesty-humility). Third, we describe evidence for the associations between various characteristic adaptations (attachment styles, motivational variables, values, and social attitudes) and religious/spiritual variables. Fourth, we briefly review nascent narrative identity work on religion/spirituality. We discuss cross-cultural research findings in the areas of dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, and narrative identity when available. We conclude by offering directions for future research.