RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to reveal the personality characteristics of religious groups, the relationship between religious behavior and personality characteristics and their change by religious education.
Ss were 76 religious students and 302 believers of Tenrikyo religion, 51 religious students and 200 believers of Sekaikyuseikyo religion, 60 non-religious students of Kyoto University and 49 non-believers of Tenri-City.
Data were obtained from a questionnaire, interview and free description. A questionnaire had a ‘religious behavior’ scale and a personality scale. The ‘Religious behavior’ scale consists of 19 ‘religious acts’ items and 29 ‘religious consciousness’ items. The personality scale consists of seven subscales with a total of 85 items ; Dependency, Anxiety, Affiliation, Aggression, Abasement, Nurturance, Super-ego strength. Ss were personally interviewed and desired free description, and then their faith and religion were considered from these data.
The results and discussion were as follow;
(1) Religious students were significantly higher in Dependency, Nurturance, Affiliation and Super-ego strength than non-religious students (TABLE 1).
(2) Believers were significantly higher in Affiliation and Nurturance than non-believers (TABLE 2).
(3) There were high positive correlations between religious behavior and each of Affiliation, Nurturance and Super-ego strength. There was a negative correlation between religious behavior and Aggression (TABLE 3).
(4) Scores in the religious behavior scale and the personality scale were affected by sex, age, home enviroment and the indiulduol's motivation to the religion. There was no significant difference in religious behavior between male and female Ss, but in personality aspects, female Ss was less aggressive and more abasive than maleSs (TABLE 4). The older group was more religious, more affiliation, more nurturant and less aggressive than the younger group (TABLE 5).
(5) As the result of religious education for three months, religious behavior was heightened and various changes in personality were observed. Particularly in male Ss, the attitude of absolute reliance on god and self-sacrifice increased, and in female Ss, Dependency and Anxiety decreased (TABLE 6 and 7).