Personality effects in personal and public orientations toward religion

The aim of this study was to consider comprehensively the relationship between a number of religious measures and Eysenckian and Freudian theories of religiosity. The sample comprised 324 (145 males, 179 females) adults from two U.S.A. Southern Baptist town communities. Subjects completed the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity, the ‘Age Universal’ I-E scale, the abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Sandler-Hazari Obsessionality Inventory, and two additional questions concerning the frequency of two religious behaviours. A principal components analysis with oblique rotation of the scales demonstrated that low psychoticism is fundamental to a personal orientation towards religion, whilst obsessionality underpins a public orientation towards religion. This distinction between types of religiosity demonstrates empirical evidence for both Eysenckian theory and Freudian theory. Suggestions are made for future research.