Personality and Attitude Correlates of Religious Conversion

Author(s): Gordon Stanley

Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Autumn, 1964), pp. 60-63
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
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 PERSONALITYAND ATTITUDE CORRELATES
OF RELIGIOUSCONVERSION
GORDON STANLEY
University of WesternAustralia.
IT
has been shown in a number of stu-
dies.that about thirty percent of reli-
gious people report a more or less sudden
conversion experience, while the others
become gradually more religious as a
result of social influences.' Religious con-
version has often been considered to
be, caused by a type of temporary neu-
rotic condition, resolution of which re-
sults in the establishment of a "new life .
Definitions of the term "conversion" gen-
erally emphasize this aspect, e. g.:
"A genuine religious conversion is the out-
come of a crisis. Though it may occur to per-
sons in a variety of circumstancesand forms,
and though we may find many preparatory
steps and long-range consequences,the event
of conversion comes to focus in a crisis of
ultimate concern. There is in such conver-
sion a sense of desperate conflict in which
one is so involved that his whole meaning
and destiny are at stake in a life-or-death,
all-or-none significance. "2
" To be converted ... (is) the process, gra-
dual or sudden, by which a self hitherto
divided, and consciously wrong, inferior and
unhappy, becomes unified and consciously
right, superior and happy, in consequence
of its firmer hold upon religious realities. "3
1 Argyle, M.: Religious Behaviour, p. 60. Lon-
don: Kegan Paul, 1958.
2 Johnson, P. E.: Psychology of Religion, p.
117. New York: Abingdon Press, 1959.
8 James, W.- The Varieties of Religious
Experience, p. 186 New York: Modern Library,
1929.
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Hypothesis I: There is a negative cor-
relation betweenneuroticism and religious
conversion i. e. people who report con-
version tend to have a lower neuroticism
score than people who are not converted.
Sargent, in a monograph dealing with
the mechanics of indoctrination, brain-
washing and thought control, has likened
religious conversion to an hysteric neu-
rotic breakdown. Accepting a Pavlovian
model to explain differences in break-
down, he considers that "among the
readiest victims of brain-washing or reli-
gious conversion may be the simple
healthy extravert."'4
Hypothesis II: There is a positive cor-
relation betweenextraversionand religious
conversion.
The religious beliefs of parents have
been shown to relate positively to the
subsequent beliefs of their children.5 Since
religious beliefs are inculcated as part of
the general socialization process, it is likely
that in those homes where religion is a
strong influence they will tend to be
emphasized, with a resulting greater
likelihood of acceptance on the part of
the children. (Undoubtedly, acceptance-
rejection is related to child training in a
complex way.)6
4 Sargent, W: Battle for the Mind, p. 7. Lon-
don: Pan Books, 1957.
3 Putney, S. & Middleton, R.: Rebellion,
Conformity and Parental Religious Ideologies.
Sociometry, 1961, 24, 125-135.
6 McGann, R. V.: An Empirical Study of
 RELIGIOUS CONVERSION 61

Those who have a strong religious of conversion experience among their

background would have been inculcated
with religious beliefs over a long period
of time and hence would be less likely
to have had a conversion experience,
except perhaps where such an experience
manifests itself in an institutionalized
form (e. g., heightened religious experience
at Confirmation). Presumably people who
are converted to religion are not likely
to have had a strong religious back-
ground.7
Hypothesis V: There is a positive cor-
Hypothesis III: There is a negative relation betweenfundamentalism and reli-
correlationbetweenthe amount of parental gious conversion.
religious belief and religious conversion.
Festinger8 has produced a theory of
personality and attitude functioning bas-
ed upon the reduction of "cognitive dis-
sonance": after making decisions people
tend to indulge in activities which con-
firm the wisdom of making that decision
and to avoid suggestions or communica-
tions indicating that they were wrong.
Hence on the basis of this theory one
would expect people who have made a
definite decision in favour of religion
to develop a closed mind in relation to
dissonant attitudes and beliefs. Ro-
keach9 has produced an operational
measure of closedmindedness (the Dog-
matism Scale) which has been shown to
differentiate among groups of religious
believers.
Hypothesis IV: There is a positive cor-
relation between dogmatism and religious
conversion.
Religious groups who hold beliefs which
are somewhat incompatible with the
general socio-cultural milieu would be
expected to manifest a greater incidence
Religious Change. Acta Psychol., 1959, 15,
510-511.
7 Argyle, M.: op. cit, p. 62.
8 Festinger, L.: A Theory of Cognitive Dis-
sonance. Illinois: Row Peterson, 1957.
9 Rokeach, M.: The Open and Closed Mind.
New York: Basic Books, 1960.
adherents than other groups.10 Funda-
mentalists accept a very literalistic view
of the Bible, a view incompatible with
most modern scholarship, both sacred
and secular, and thus may be expected
to report more conversions than other
religious groups. Moreover as they take
the Bible literally they may also be more
concerned with its commands to convert
than liberal believers.
METHOD
1. Sample
The results to be reported were obtain-
ed from questionnaires administered to
347 Australian theological students re-
presenting eight different Christian de-
nominations. Questionnaires were com-
pleted by the students of ten theologi-
cal seminaries under supervision of the
college authorities who returned them
to the author for processing.
2. The Measures
Ss were administered the extraversion
and neuroticism scales of the Maudsley
Personality Inventory, Rokeach's Dog-
matism Scale and measures of conveision,
parental religious belief and fundamental-
ism. The conversion item was:
Of the following please check the statement
which most nearly describes your own expe-
rience:
(a) I consider that my present religious com-
mittment is a gradual outgrowth of many
years of religious instruction and training
and that I cannot point to any single event
in my life which wrought a definite change
from unbelief to belief ( ).
(b) Although there was a time in my life
10 Festinger, L., Riecken, H.W. & Schachter,
S. When Prophecy Fails. Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1956.

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62 RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

when I had no religious belief, the change
from unbelief to belief has been a gradual
one ( ).
(c) Although I have always held some reli-
gious beliefs I can vividly recall the occa-
sion when I became more vitally committed
to these beliefs ( ).
(d) There was a time in my life when religion
had no interest for me and I can attribute
my present religious committment to a dis-
tinct point in my life at which I made a
definite decision in favour of religion ( ).
If the student checked (a) and/or (b)
he was called 'non-converted'; if he
checked (c) and/or (d) he was called
converted.'
For purposes of assessing parental reli-
gious belief, the S was asked to check two
items:
On the whole would you say that
your father was
very religious
religious
indifferent to religion
antagonistic to religion
very antagonistic to religion
(Underline which one applies)
The second item was identical except
that "mother" was substituted for "fath-
ther". Each item was scored from 0 to
4 (4 representirng high religiosity) and a
combined score for the two items ob-
tained by addition.
The fundamentalist item was a direct
question about the literal truth of the
Bible and has been reported elsewhere.l
Which one of these two statements most sults. The correlations
closely represents your own belief? (Please though statistically significant
pick one statement only.)
(a) I believe in a God to whom one may
for help, but I do not believe that lar to those
pray
every word of the Bible should be accepted and do not suggest the operation
as literal truth ( ).
n Stanley, G.: Personality and Attitude
Characteristics of Fundamentalist Theological which
Students. Austral. J. Psychol., 1963, 15, 121- Further
123.
(b) I believe in a God to whom one may
pray for help and I believe that all of the
Bible is divinely inspired and literally true
( ).
People checking item (b) were classified
as fundamentalists.
3. Analysis
Biserial correlations between converted
non-converted and the personality vari-
ables and a tetrachoric correlation be-
tween the converted/non-converted and
fundamentalist/non-fundamentalist were
computed.
RESULTS
Table I lists the correlations obtained
between conversion and the personality
and attitude variables.
The correlations are significant and in
support of the five hypotheses under con-
sideration. Thus there is a tendency for
the converted theological student to be
more extraverted, to have a lower neu-
roticism score(less emotionally unstable ?),
to be more dogmatic and to come from
a less religious home than the non-con-
verted theological student and to be con-
servative and literalistic in his religious
beliefs.
DIscussIoN
A certain degree of caution must be
exercised in the interpretation of the re-
are small, al-
because
of the large sample used. The correla-
tions between the measures used are simi-
obtained in validation studies
of any
obvious response bias.
The present findings may be inter-
preted as supportive of the theories from
the hypotheses were derived.
research is needed with groups
of laity in order to determine the extent

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 RELIGIOUS CONVERSION 63

to which the results may have been
attenuated by sampling factors.
SUMMARY
From a review of the psychological
literature on conversion five hypotheses
were proposed: I. There is a negative
correlation between neuroticism and reli-
gious conversion. II. There is a positive
correlation between extraversion and reli-
gious conversion. III. There is a nega-
tive correlation between amount of pa-
rental religious belief and conversion. IV.
There is a positive correlation between
dogmatism and religious conversion. V.
There is a positive correlation between
fundamentalism and religious conver-
sion.
These hypotheses were tested on 347
theological students on the basis of their
replies to a questionnaire containing the
N & E scales of the M. P. I., Rokeach's
D Scale and conversion, parental reli-
gious belief and fundamentalism meas-
ures. All were confirmed at the five per-
cent level or better. However it was
pointed out that the study should be
viewed as suggestive rather than de-
finitive: replications with groups of laity
are necessary to determine the generality
of the results.

TABLE I

Correlations between conversion and personality and attitude

variables.
C N E P D F
Conversion (C) 1.00 -.15** .11* .34** .19** .33**
Neuroticism (N) 1.00 -.02 -.01 .26** .04
Extraversion (E) 1.00 -.02 .05 .20**
Parental Belief (P) 1.00 .03 .00
Dogmatism (D) 1.00 .58**
Fundamentalism (F) 1.00
*p < .05
** p < .01

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