Religiosity, Personality and Maturity

Abstract

Religiosity is something available to every person, therefore it might be corelated with personality and maturity; this, however, should not be said about causality. This article shows that no matter what aspects of religiosity are studied, religiosity is always more than personality, hence the findings of many authors yield conflicting results. The research presented here serves to explain this problem from the perspective of examining the relationship between religiosity and personality and pseudo-religiosity and maturity. In the first study, Polish university students who declared to be believers and members of the Roman Catholic Church were examined using the Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) and Scale of Personal Religiosity in order to investigate a relationship between some aspects of religiosity and personal traits. On the other hand, a second study shows that most members of charismatic groups, identified as pseudo-religious, exhibit personality immaturity. In this study pseudo-religious individuals were examined using the Personality Maturity Questionnaire (DoM) based on the Maslow Theory of Personality Maturity.