What are the personality differences between believers and non-believers?

Numerous international studies have been completed on the issue of personality differences between spiritual and religious people, although none of these studies have ever been conducted in Italy. More specifically, two tools have been used to analyse these differences: the Big Five Questionnaire (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Borgogni, 1993) and the RAS - Scala di Atteggiamento Religioso (Religious Attitude Scale) (Laudadio, Baumgartner, D’Alessio, in press), which were administered to a sample of 3,019 people (52.26% females) with an average age of 40. The analyses confirm a relationship between the dimensions of "Personality", "Religiosity" and "Spirituality". The cluster analysis shows that "Religious Believers" are more 'Conscientious' and 'Friendly' but less 'Energetic' and 'Emotionally Stable' compared to the other two groups. This result is in line with what has been shown by Saroglou (2002) in the conclusion of his meta-analysis. Numerous gender differences have been observed regarding the relationship between these two constructs and certain features, which may be attributable to the specific characteristics of Italians in relation to the dimensions of "spirituality" and "religiosity".

Andrea Laudadio, Quali sono le differenze di personalità tra credenti e non credenti? in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 1/2010, pp 95-124, DOI: 10.3280/RIP2010-001006