PERSONALITY PREDICTORS OF RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION AMONG PROTESTANT, CATHOLIC, AND NON-RELIGIOUS COLLEGE-STUDENTS

A total of 249 college students completed a questionnaire regarding th eir Religious Affiliation, Intrinsic/extrinsic Religiosity, Impulsiven ess, Venturesomeness, Irrational Beliefs, Neuroticism, Depression, Obs ession Proneness, Irrational Beliefs, and Positive and Negative stress . The subsample used included 214 students who indicated they were non -religious, Protestant, or Catholic. Religious affiliation was found t o be a moderator of the correlations of religious ego-involvement, i.e . intrinsic religious motivation, with various personality variables. Intrinsic religiosity was found to be predictive of proneness to obses sive-compulsive cognitions/behaviors among Catholics, but not among no n-religious and Protestant subjects. These results were discussed in t erms of ego-involvement with the particular social norms espoused by d ifferent religious affiliations. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.