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Religiousness and the HEXACO personality factors and facets in a large online sample
Author(s) -
Ashton Michael C.,
Lee Kibeom
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/jopy.12459
Subject(s) - psychology , personality , sample (material) , facet (psychology) , big five personality traits , social psychology , clinical psychology , chemistry , chromatography
Objective To examine the associations of religiousness with personality characteristics. Method We obtained self‐ratings of religiousness along with self‐reports on the HEXACO Personality Inventory—Revised in a sample of nearly 200,000 online respondents. Respondents also indicated their religious affiliation, religiousness of upbringing, and political orientation; a subset of the respondents also indicated attitudes about immigration and foreign aid. Results Religiousness showed weak associations (| r |s < 0.15) with several HEXACO factors but somewhat stronger associations with the Fairness and Altruism facets (both r s > 0.20). On those facets, participants with the highest religiousness self‐rating (7 on a 1‐to‐7 scale) averaged about 1 SD higher than did participants with the lowest religiousness self‐rating. In addition, religiousness was negatively related to the Unconventionality facet among persons whose upbringing was very religious, but not among persons whose upbringing was very nonreligious. Religiousness/personality associations were generally quite similar within different religious affiliations (Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and several branches of Christianity) but were stronger within relatively religious countries than within nonreligious countries. Despite the positive association of religiousness with the Altruism facet, religiousness was uncorrelated with pro‐out‐group attitudes (i.e., favoring multicultural immigration and foreign aid). Conclusion The findings advance our understanding of religiousness/personality associations.