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Spiritual involvement and belief: the relationship between spirituality and Eysenck’s personality dimensions
Personality and Individual Differences 30 (2001) 187±192
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Spiritual involvement and belief: the relationship between spirituality and Eysenck's personality dimensions John Maltby *, Liza Day Psychology Subject Group and Centre for Health and Social Care Research, School of Social Science and Law, Sheeld Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheeld S10 2BP, UK Received 12 May 1999; received in revised form 20 November 1999
Abstract To examine the generalizabilty of the ®nding that low psychoticism underpins religiosity, the present study sought to examine the relationship between Eysenck's personality dimensions and four indices of spirituality. Three hundred undergraduate students (140 males, 160 females) completed the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The results suggest that when applying Eysenck's model of personality to spirituality, it is extraversion that accounts for most variance (between 9% and 14%) in spirituality scores. The present ®ndings suggest a new avenue of empirical investigation in which wider concepts of spirituality and religion can be examined within Eysenck's model of personality. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Spirituality; Belief; Personality; Religiosity; Religion; Extraversion; Psychoticism; Neuroticism
1. Introduction At present there is a wealth of information that suggests that low psychoticism is fundamental to religiosity across a number of cultures. Studies, among children and adults, have employed dierent measures of religiosity; such as religious attitude scales (Francis & Pearson, 1985, 1993; Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Lewis & Joseph, 1994; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, Talley, Cooper, & Leslie, 1995; Maltby, 1997; Wilde & Joseph, 1997), religious orientation scales (Maltby et al., 1995; Maltby, 1999, 2000), and measures of the frequency of religious
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-114-225-2543; fax: +44-114-225-2430. E-mail address: [email protected] net.com (J. Maltby). 0191-8869/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0191-8869(00)00024-6
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J. Maltby, L. Day / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 187±192
behaviours (Francis & Wilcox, 1994; Maltby, 1995; Lewis & Maltby, 1996; Smith, 1996; Wilde & Joseph, 1997). Despite this wealth of information on the relationship between religiosity and Eysenck's personality model, the relationship between Eysenck's personality theory and other accounts of experiential experience are limited. Caird (1987) found no signi®cant relationship between mystical experience and Eysenck's personality dimensions. However, there have been recent attempts to theoretically expand the scope covered by religiosity to a broader construct of spirituality (Hatch, Bury, Naberhaus & Hellmich, 1998). Though there are similarities between religiosity and spirituality, it is often argued that the two are very dierent, with the suggestion that individuals can be very spiritual, without being religious (Hatch et al., 1998). Therefore, despite this wealth of information on the relationship between religiosity and Eysenck's personality model, the relationship between Eysenck's personality theory and aspects of spiritual beliefs has not been examined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between spiritual involvement and beliefs and Eysenck's three personality dimensions of psychoticism (solitary, troublesome, cruel, inhumane personality traits) neuroticism (anxious, worrying, moody and depressive personality traits) and extraversion (sociable, carefree, optimistic, sensation seeking personality traits); Eysenck and Eysenck (1975, 1985). 2. Method 2.1. Sample Three hundred undergraduate students (140 males, 160 females) aged between 18 and 53 years (Mean=25.24, SD=8.3) took part in the study. 2.2. Questionnaires 2.2.1. The Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS; Hatch et al., 1998) The scales were designed to measure spiritual status and the scale's items were sought from a number of perspectives (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism). The scale produces four sub-scales. . External/ritual (13 items that re¯ect belief in a greater power; `Participating in spiritual activities helps me forgive people' [item 10]; `I have a personal relationship with a power greater than myself' [item 17]). . Internal/¯uid (11 items that re¯ect internal beliefs and growth; `Some experiences can be understood only through one's spiritual beliefs' [item 6]; `my spiritual beliefs continue to evolve' [item 11]). . Existential/meditative (seven items that re¯ect existential issues; `I can ®nd meaning in times of hardship' [item 2], `Meditation does not help me feel more in touch with my inner spirit' [item 16, reversed]). . Humility/personal application (four items that re¯ect humility and application of spiritual principles; `When I wrong someone, I make an eort to apologize' [item 20]; `When I am ashamed of something I have done, I tell someone about it' [item 21]).
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189
Internal reliability statistics for three of the subscales are satisfactory (external/ritual, a=0.98; internal/¯uid, a=0.74; existential/meditative, a=0.70) but perhaps, as Hatch et al. (1998) suggest, not for humility/personal application sub-scale (a=0.51). 2.2.2. The abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Francis, Brown, & Philipchalk, 1992) This scale contains 6-item measures of the three Eysenck personality dimensions; psychoticism (solitary, troublesome, cruel, inhumane traits), neuroticism (anxious, worrying and moody traits), and extraversion (sociable, sensation-seeking, carefree and optimistic traits). Further, the measure also contains a measure of lie scores, to take account of individuals producing socially desirable responses. 3. Results Cronbach's alpha (Cronbach, 1951) was computed for all the scales. The reliability statistics for the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire were satisfactory (psychoticism, a=0.67; neuroticism, a=0.83; extraversion, a=0.85; lie scores, a=0.82). The internal reliability statistic for the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale's subscales were similar to that reported by Hatch et al. (1998); external/ritual, a=0.89; internal/¯uid, a=0.70; existential/meditative, a=0.69; humility/personal application, a=0.51, and suggests caution to be used when interpreting ®ndings involving the measure of humility/personal application spirituality. Table 1 shows the Pearson product moment correlations computed between the subscales of Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and the measures contained within the abbreviated form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire for men and women separately. Among men, externality/ritual spirituality was signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion and neuroticism, Table 1 Correlations between the subscales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and Eysenck's personality dimensions (men above the diagonal (N=140); women below the diagonal (N=160)a SIBS-ERb SIBS-ER SIBS-IF SIBS-EM SIBS-HPA E N P L a
± 0.71 0.63 0.06 0.31 0.14 0.12 0.15
SIBS-IF ±
0.81
SIBS-EM
0.77 0.37 0.34 0.04 0.11 ÿ0.09
SIBS-HPA
±
0.79 0.63
0.41 0.37 0.08 0.06 ÿ0.14
±
0.33 0.15 0.06
0.33 ÿ0.08 0.04 0.12
E
P
0.32 0.30 0.31 0.16
± ÿ0.12 0.05 0.01
N
ÿ0.21 ÿ0.10 0.08 ÿ0.17 0.02 ± 0.01 ÿ0.07
0.20 ÿ0.05 0.06 ÿ0.02 0.06 0.03 ± 0.10
L
0.01 ÿ0.10 0.25 0.06 ÿ0.03 ÿ0.07 0.11 ±
*p<0.05; **p<0.01. SIBS-ER=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±external/ritual; SIBS-IF=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±internal/¯uid, SIBS-EM=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±existential/meditative; SIBS-HPA=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±humility/personal application; E=extraversion; P=psychoticism; N=neuroticism; L=lie scores. b
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and a signi®cant negative association with psychoticism. Internality/¯uid spirituality was signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion. Existential/meditative spirituality shares a signi®cant positive association with lie scores. Humility/personal application spirituality was signi®cantly negatively associated with psychoticism. Among women, all aspects of spirituality are signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion, and not with any other measures contained within the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Due to the existential/meditative subscale of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale being related to lie scores among men, correlations between the existential/meditative subscale and the extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism scales were computed among men with scores on the lie scale partialled out. Scores on the existential/meditative subscale was found to be signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion (r=0.33, p<0.01), with no signi®cant association with psychoticism (r=0.09, p>0.05) and neuroticism (r=0.06, p>0.05). 4. Discussion The present ®ndings suggest that extraversion is signi®cantly positively correlated with all aspects of spirituality among women, and signi®cantly positively correlated with external/ritual, internal/¯uid and existential/meditative aspects of spirituality among men. This suggests that spirituality re¯ects sociable, excitement-seeking, carefree, optimistic personality traits (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). These ®ndings contrast with the wealth of information that suggests that the psychoticism dimension, rather than extraversion and neuroticism, is fundamental to religiosity (Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Francis & Pearson, 1993; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, 1997). This suggests that the scales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale are measuring characteristics dierent from the other scales of religious attitude, religious orientation and behaviour, and that those personality traits that underlie spiritual involvement and belief are quite dierent from those that underlie religiosity. One explanation as to why extraversion, rather than psychoticism, underpins spirituality, can be obtained from descriptions of the spiritual individual. Whilst religious attitudes may re¯ect the results of the process of individuals' conditioning to established religious ideas and beliefs, some authors view the spiritual individual as; engaged in a more open and re¯ective dialogue in the development of their beliefs, seeking new experiences, and attempting to establish a carefree and optimistic environment (Thoresen, 1999; Wul, 1997). Therefore, spirituality would be expected to re¯ect extraversion traits, such as sensation seeking, optimistic and carefree behaviours. Some of the aspects of spirituality are signi®cantly related to Eysenck's other personality dimensions (psychoticism and neuroticism) and lie scores among the present sample. The ®nding that low psychoticism and high/low neuroticism is associated with some aspects of spirituality echoes research that suggests that low psychoticism underpins religiosity (Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Francis & Pearson, 1993; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, 1997) and that external and ritual aspects of religiosity are related to the obsessive neurotic, whilst internal religiosity is not (Lewis, 1994; Maltby, McCollam & Millar, 1994; Maltby et al., 1995). Therefore, future research should include measures of religiosity to make these comparisons when investigating these relationships further. The ®ndings also suggest that men, who use spirituality for an existential/meditative purpose, may demonstrate higher social desirability. However, all these
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®ndings are con®ned to men, to speci®c subscales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (of which one, the humility/personal application spirituality, was found to have a low internal reliability) and account for 6% of the shared variance at most. These ®ndings need replication among other samples, particularly in light of the comprehensive examination of religiosity and personality among various cultures and ages. However, the present ®ndings provide a new avenue of empirical investigation, in which wider concepts of spirituality and religion can be examined within Eysenck's model of personality. In summary, though other aspects of personality dimension are related to spirituality, the present ®ndings suggests that when applying Eysenck's model of personality to spirituality, it is extraversion, rather than psychoticism and neuroticism, that account for most variance (between 9% and 14%) in spirituality scores. References Caird, D. (1987). Religiosity and personality: Are mystics introverted, neurotic, or psychotic? British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 345±346. Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coecient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297±334. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, M. W. (1985). Personality and individual dierences: a natural science approach. New York: Plenum. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Francis, L. J. (1991). Personality and attitude towards religion among adult churchgoers in England. Psychological Reports, 69, 791±794. Francis, L. J. (1993). Personality and religion among college-students in the UK. Personality and Individual Dierences, 14, 619±622. Francis, L. J., & Bennett, G. A. (1992). Personality and religion among female drug misusers. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 30, 27±31. Francis, L. J., Brown, L. B., & Philipchalk, R. (1992). The development of an abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQR-A) Ð its use among students in England, Canada, the USA and Australia. Personality and Individual Dierences, 13, 443±449. Francis, L. J., & Pearson, P. R. (1985). Psychoticism and religiosity among 15-year olds. Personality and Individual Dierences, 6, 397±398. Francis, L. J., & Pearson, P. R. (1993). The personality-characteristics of student churchgoers. Personality and Individual Dierences, 15, 373±380. Francis, L. J., & Wilcox, C. (1994). Personality, prayer, and church attendance among 16-year-old to 18-year-old girls in England. Journal of Social Psychology, 134, 243±246. Hatch, R. L., Bury, M. A., Naberhaus, D. S., & Hellmich, L. K. (1998). The spiritual involvement and beliefs scale: Development and testing of a new instrument. The Journal of Family Practice, 46, 476±486. Lewis, C. A., & Joseph, S. (1994). Religiosity Ð psychoticism and obsessionality in Northern Irish university-students. Personality and Individual Dierences, 17(5), 685±687. Lewis, C. A., & Maltby, J. (1995). Religiosity and personality among USA adults. Personality and Individual Dierences, 18, 293±295. Lewis, C. A., & Maltby, J. (1996). Personality, prayer and church attendance in a sample of male college students in the USA. Psychological Reports, 78, 1±3. Maltby, J. (1995). Personality, prayer and church attendance among US female adults. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 529±531. Maltby, J. (1997). Personality and correlates of religiosity among adults in the Republic of Ireland. Psychological Reports, 81, 827±831.
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Maltby, J. (1999). Religious orientation and Eysenck's personality dimensions: The use of the amended religious orientation scale to examine the relationship between religiosity, psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion. Personality and Individual Dierences, 26, 79±84. Maltby, J. (2000). Personality dimensions of religious orientation. Journal of Psychology, in press Maltby, J., McCollam, P., & Millar, D. (1994). Religiosity and obsessionality: A re®nement. The Journal of Psychology, 128, 609±611. Maltby, J., Talley, M., Cooper, C., & Leslie, J. C. (1995). Personality eects in personal and public orientations toward religion. Personality and Individual Dierences, 19, 157±163. Smith, D. L. (1996). Private prayer, public worship and personality among 11±15-year-old adolescents. Personality and Individual Dierences, 21, 1063±1065. Thoresen, C. E. (1999). Spirituality and health: Is there a relationship? Journal of Health Psychology, 4, 291±300. Wilde, A., & Joseph, S. (1997). Religiosity and personality in a Moslem context. Personality and Individual Dierences, 23(5), 899±900. Wul, D. M. (1997). Psychology of religion: Classic and contemporary (2nd ed.). London: John Wiley & Sons.
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Spiritual involvement and belief: the relationship between spirituality and Eysenck's personality dimensions John Maltby *, Liza Day Psychology Subject Group and Centre for Health and Social Care Research, School of Social Science and Law, Sheeld Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheeld S10 2BP, UK Received 12 May 1999; received in revised form 20 November 1999
Abstract To examine the generalizabilty of the ®nding that low psychoticism underpins religiosity, the present study sought to examine the relationship between Eysenck's personality dimensions and four indices of spirituality. Three hundred undergraduate students (140 males, 160 females) completed the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The results suggest that when applying Eysenck's model of personality to spirituality, it is extraversion that accounts for most variance (between 9% and 14%) in spirituality scores. The present ®ndings suggest a new avenue of empirical investigation in which wider concepts of spirituality and religion can be examined within Eysenck's model of personality. # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Spirituality; Belief; Personality; Religiosity; Religion; Extraversion; Psychoticism; Neuroticism
1. Introduction At present there is a wealth of information that suggests that low psychoticism is fundamental to religiosity across a number of cultures. Studies, among children and adults, have employed dierent measures of religiosity; such as religious attitude scales (Francis & Pearson, 1985, 1993; Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Lewis & Joseph, 1994; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, Talley, Cooper, & Leslie, 1995; Maltby, 1997; Wilde & Joseph, 1997), religious orientation scales (Maltby et al., 1995; Maltby, 1999, 2000), and measures of the frequency of religious
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-114-225-2543; fax: +44-114-225-2430. E-mail address: [email protected] net.com (J. Maltby). 0191-8869/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0191-8869(00)00024-6
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J. Maltby, L. Day / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 187±192
behaviours (Francis & Wilcox, 1994; Maltby, 1995; Lewis & Maltby, 1996; Smith, 1996; Wilde & Joseph, 1997). Despite this wealth of information on the relationship between religiosity and Eysenck's personality model, the relationship between Eysenck's personality theory and other accounts of experiential experience are limited. Caird (1987) found no signi®cant relationship between mystical experience and Eysenck's personality dimensions. However, there have been recent attempts to theoretically expand the scope covered by religiosity to a broader construct of spirituality (Hatch, Bury, Naberhaus & Hellmich, 1998). Though there are similarities between religiosity and spirituality, it is often argued that the two are very dierent, with the suggestion that individuals can be very spiritual, without being religious (Hatch et al., 1998). Therefore, despite this wealth of information on the relationship between religiosity and Eysenck's personality model, the relationship between Eysenck's personality theory and aspects of spiritual beliefs has not been examined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between spiritual involvement and beliefs and Eysenck's three personality dimensions of psychoticism (solitary, troublesome, cruel, inhumane personality traits) neuroticism (anxious, worrying, moody and depressive personality traits) and extraversion (sociable, carefree, optimistic, sensation seeking personality traits); Eysenck and Eysenck (1975, 1985). 2. Method 2.1. Sample Three hundred undergraduate students (140 males, 160 females) aged between 18 and 53 years (Mean=25.24, SD=8.3) took part in the study. 2.2. Questionnaires 2.2.1. The Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS; Hatch et al., 1998) The scales were designed to measure spiritual status and the scale's items were sought from a number of perspectives (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism). The scale produces four sub-scales. . External/ritual (13 items that re¯ect belief in a greater power; `Participating in spiritual activities helps me forgive people' [item 10]; `I have a personal relationship with a power greater than myself' [item 17]). . Internal/¯uid (11 items that re¯ect internal beliefs and growth; `Some experiences can be understood only through one's spiritual beliefs' [item 6]; `my spiritual beliefs continue to evolve' [item 11]). . Existential/meditative (seven items that re¯ect existential issues; `I can ®nd meaning in times of hardship' [item 2], `Meditation does not help me feel more in touch with my inner spirit' [item 16, reversed]). . Humility/personal application (four items that re¯ect humility and application of spiritual principles; `When I wrong someone, I make an eort to apologize' [item 20]; `When I am ashamed of something I have done, I tell someone about it' [item 21]).
J. Maltby, L. Day / Personality and Individual Dierences 30 (2001) 187±192
189
Internal reliability statistics for three of the subscales are satisfactory (external/ritual, a=0.98; internal/¯uid, a=0.74; existential/meditative, a=0.70) but perhaps, as Hatch et al. (1998) suggest, not for humility/personal application sub-scale (a=0.51). 2.2.2. The abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Francis, Brown, & Philipchalk, 1992) This scale contains 6-item measures of the three Eysenck personality dimensions; psychoticism (solitary, troublesome, cruel, inhumane traits), neuroticism (anxious, worrying and moody traits), and extraversion (sociable, sensation-seeking, carefree and optimistic traits). Further, the measure also contains a measure of lie scores, to take account of individuals producing socially desirable responses. 3. Results Cronbach's alpha (Cronbach, 1951) was computed for all the scales. The reliability statistics for the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire were satisfactory (psychoticism, a=0.67; neuroticism, a=0.83; extraversion, a=0.85; lie scores, a=0.82). The internal reliability statistic for the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale's subscales were similar to that reported by Hatch et al. (1998); external/ritual, a=0.89; internal/¯uid, a=0.70; existential/meditative, a=0.69; humility/personal application, a=0.51, and suggests caution to be used when interpreting ®ndings involving the measure of humility/personal application spirituality. Table 1 shows the Pearson product moment correlations computed between the subscales of Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and the measures contained within the abbreviated form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire for men and women separately. Among men, externality/ritual spirituality was signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion and neuroticism, Table 1 Correlations between the subscales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale and Eysenck's personality dimensions (men above the diagonal (N=140); women below the diagonal (N=160)a SIBS-ERb SIBS-ER SIBS-IF SIBS-EM SIBS-HPA E N P L a
± 0.71 0.63 0.06 0.31 0.14 0.12 0.15
SIBS-IF ±
0.81
SIBS-EM
0.77 0.37 0.34 0.04 0.11 ÿ0.09
SIBS-HPA
±
0.79 0.63
0.41 0.37 0.08 0.06 ÿ0.14
±
0.33 0.15 0.06
0.33 ÿ0.08 0.04 0.12
E
P
0.32 0.30 0.31 0.16
± ÿ0.12 0.05 0.01
N
ÿ0.21 ÿ0.10 0.08 ÿ0.17 0.02 ± 0.01 ÿ0.07
0.20 ÿ0.05 0.06 ÿ0.02 0.06 0.03 ± 0.10
L
0.01 ÿ0.10 0.25 0.06 ÿ0.03 ÿ0.07 0.11 ±
*p<0.05; **p<0.01. SIBS-ER=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±external/ritual; SIBS-IF=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±internal/¯uid, SIBS-EM=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±existential/meditative; SIBS-HPA=Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale±humility/personal application; E=extraversion; P=psychoticism; N=neuroticism; L=lie scores. b
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and a signi®cant negative association with psychoticism. Internality/¯uid spirituality was signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion. Existential/meditative spirituality shares a signi®cant positive association with lie scores. Humility/personal application spirituality was signi®cantly negatively associated with psychoticism. Among women, all aspects of spirituality are signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion, and not with any other measures contained within the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Due to the existential/meditative subscale of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale being related to lie scores among men, correlations between the existential/meditative subscale and the extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism scales were computed among men with scores on the lie scale partialled out. Scores on the existential/meditative subscale was found to be signi®cantly positively associated with extraversion (r=0.33, p<0.01), with no signi®cant association with psychoticism (r=0.09, p>0.05) and neuroticism (r=0.06, p>0.05). 4. Discussion The present ®ndings suggest that extraversion is signi®cantly positively correlated with all aspects of spirituality among women, and signi®cantly positively correlated with external/ritual, internal/¯uid and existential/meditative aspects of spirituality among men. This suggests that spirituality re¯ects sociable, excitement-seeking, carefree, optimistic personality traits (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). These ®ndings contrast with the wealth of information that suggests that the psychoticism dimension, rather than extraversion and neuroticism, is fundamental to religiosity (Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Francis & Pearson, 1993; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, 1997). This suggests that the scales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale are measuring characteristics dierent from the other scales of religious attitude, religious orientation and behaviour, and that those personality traits that underlie spiritual involvement and belief are quite dierent from those that underlie religiosity. One explanation as to why extraversion, rather than psychoticism, underpins spirituality, can be obtained from descriptions of the spiritual individual. Whilst religious attitudes may re¯ect the results of the process of individuals' conditioning to established religious ideas and beliefs, some authors view the spiritual individual as; engaged in a more open and re¯ective dialogue in the development of their beliefs, seeking new experiences, and attempting to establish a carefree and optimistic environment (Thoresen, 1999; Wul, 1997). Therefore, spirituality would be expected to re¯ect extraversion traits, such as sensation seeking, optimistic and carefree behaviours. Some of the aspects of spirituality are signi®cantly related to Eysenck's other personality dimensions (psychoticism and neuroticism) and lie scores among the present sample. The ®nding that low psychoticism and high/low neuroticism is associated with some aspects of spirituality echoes research that suggests that low psychoticism underpins religiosity (Francis, 1991, 1993; Francis & Bennett, 1992; Francis & Pearson, 1993; Lewis & Maltby, 1995; Maltby, 1997) and that external and ritual aspects of religiosity are related to the obsessive neurotic, whilst internal religiosity is not (Lewis, 1994; Maltby, McCollam & Millar, 1994; Maltby et al., 1995). Therefore, future research should include measures of religiosity to make these comparisons when investigating these relationships further. The ®ndings also suggest that men, who use spirituality for an existential/meditative purpose, may demonstrate higher social desirability. However, all these
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®ndings are con®ned to men, to speci®c subscales of the Spiritual Involvement and Beliefs Scale (of which one, the humility/personal application spirituality, was found to have a low internal reliability) and account for 6% of the shared variance at most. These ®ndings need replication among other samples, particularly in light of the comprehensive examination of religiosity and personality among various cultures and ages. However, the present ®ndings provide a new avenue of empirical investigation, in which wider concepts of spirituality and religion can be examined within Eysenck's model of personality. In summary, though other aspects of personality dimension are related to spirituality, the present ®ndings suggests that when applying Eysenck's model of personality to spirituality, it is extraversion, rather than psychoticism and neuroticism, that account for most variance (between 9% and 14%) in spirituality scores. References Caird, D. (1987). Religiosity and personality: Are mystics introverted, neurotic, or psychotic? British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 345±346. Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coecient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297±334. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, M. W. (1985). Personality and individual dierences: a natural science approach. New York: Plenum. Eysenck, H. J., & Eysenck, S. B. G. (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Francis, L. J. (1991). Personality and attitude towards religion among adult churchgoers in England. Psychological Reports, 69, 791±794. Francis, L. J. (1993). Personality and religion among college-students in the UK. Personality and Individual Dierences, 14, 619±622. Francis, L. J., & Bennett, G. A. (1992). Personality and religion among female drug misusers. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 30, 27±31. Francis, L. J., Brown, L. B., & Philipchalk, R. (1992). The development of an abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQR-A) Ð its use among students in England, Canada, the USA and Australia. Personality and Individual Dierences, 13, 443±449. Francis, L. J., & Pearson, P. R. (1985). Psychoticism and religiosity among 15-year olds. Personality and Individual Dierences, 6, 397±398. Francis, L. J., & Pearson, P. R. (1993). The personality-characteristics of student churchgoers. Personality and Individual Dierences, 15, 373±380. Francis, L. J., & Wilcox, C. (1994). Personality, prayer, and church attendance among 16-year-old to 18-year-old girls in England. Journal of Social Psychology, 134, 243±246. Hatch, R. L., Bury, M. A., Naberhaus, D. S., & Hellmich, L. K. (1998). The spiritual involvement and beliefs scale: Development and testing of a new instrument. The Journal of Family Practice, 46, 476±486. Lewis, C. A., & Joseph, S. (1994). Religiosity Ð psychoticism and obsessionality in Northern Irish university-students. Personality and Individual Dierences, 17(5), 685±687. Lewis, C. A., & Maltby, J. (1995). Religiosity and personality among USA adults. Personality and Individual Dierences, 18, 293±295. Lewis, C. A., & Maltby, J. (1996). Personality, prayer and church attendance in a sample of male college students in the USA. Psychological Reports, 78, 1±3. Maltby, J. (1995). Personality, prayer and church attendance among US female adults. The Journal of Social Psychology, 135, 529±531. Maltby, J. (1997). Personality and correlates of religiosity among adults in the Republic of Ireland. Psychological Reports, 81, 827±831.
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