Spirituality and Religion within the Five-Factor Model: Latent-Class and Correlation Models

Background Personality psychology has long explored how the search for the sacred relates to characteristic thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, with evidence showing a reciprocal influence between personality and religious or spiritual development. This study aims to explore the relationships between spirituality, religion and personality within the five factor model. Methods The sample was comprised of 336 university students from a public university in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, with ages between 19 and 55 years (M = 25.16; SD = 6.08) and of both sexes (Men = 43.1% ; Women = 56.9%). Data were collected through self-report measures assessing religiosity, spirituality, and personality traits, and subsequently examined using correlational and latent class analyses. Results The correlation analysis shows significant associations between the facets of personality, spirituality and religion. The latent class analysis allows us to identify two classes. The first profile assumes a high spirituality, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and less neuroticism, religious crisis and religiosity. The second profile assumes a low spirituality, openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and religiosity and greater neuroticism and religious crisis and religiosity. Conclusions The results of the present study not only contribute to basic research in psychology, but also suggest the importance for clinical psychologists to embrace spirituality as it indirectly affects mental health both positively or negatively.