THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS AND THE PERCEPTION OF RELIGIOUS INFORMATION
Abstract
The way people receive, interpret, and respond to religious information is not uniform; it is shaped substantially by stable individual differences in personality, cognition, and motivation. This article reviews the psychological literature on how individual-psychological characteristics relate to the perception of religious content. Drawing on the Five-Factor Model of personality, dual-process theories of cognition, the intrinsic–extrinsic and quest orientations of religiousness, the need for
cognitive closure, and attachment theory, it argues that religious information is filtered through a person’s dispositional traits and cognitive style rather than absorbed passively. Traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness predict openness to conventional religious messages, openness to experience predicts a more exploratory and symbolic reading, and an analytic cognitive style is associated with greater skepticism toward supernatural claims. The article concludes that a
person-centered, interactionist account best captures the perception of religious information and outlines implications for religious education, interfaith communication, and future research
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