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Genetic and Environmental Sources of Individual Religiousness: The Roles of Individual Personality Traits and Perceived Environmental Religiousness

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Abstract

In the current study, we examined the genetic and environmental sources of the links between individual religiousness and individual personality traits, perceived parental religiousness, and perceived peer religiousness. Data from 870 individuals (incl. 394 twin pairs) were analyzed. Variance in individual religiousness was significantly influenced by genetic effects, environmental influences shared by twins reared together, and individual-specific environmental influences. Individual religiousness showed significant associations with age, sex, specific personality traits (e.g., agreeableness, openness to values), and perceived religiousness of important social interaction partners, such as parents, best friends, and spouses. The links to personality traits were relatively small and primarily genetically mediated. The associations between individual religiousness and parental religiousness were substantial and mediated by shared environmental effects. These links significantly decreased across age accompanying a significant decrease of shared environmental influences on individual religiousness. The correlations between individual religiousness and perceived religiousness of spouses and best friends were relatively moderate but increased with age. These associations were mediated by genetic as well as nonshared environmental sources accompanying an increase of nonshared environmental influences on individual religiousness with age. The results suggest that inter-individual differences in religiousness are due to multiple sources.

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Notes

  1. We checked for possible differences between people with and without partners. People with partners showed lower levels of neuroticism (d = .21; p < .01) and excitement seeking (d = .38; p < .001) and a higher degree of extraversion (d = −.19; p < .01) and conscientiousness (d = −.31; p < .001). However, participants with and without spouse data did not differ significantly in individual religiousness and other personality variables.

  2. McCullough et al. (2003) found a significant interaction between neuroticism and the strength of religious upbringing predicting religiousness in early adulthood. Thus, personality traits may also interact with the effects of individuals’ social environments (e.g., parental and peer religiousness) on individual religiousness in adulthood. Therefore, we also tested for personality × parental religiousness interactions as well as personality × peer religiousness interactions accounting for variance in individual religiousness. However, neither for the younger nor for the older group we found significant personality × parental religiousness interactions or personality × peer religiousness interactions.

  3. Note, the latent correlations between genetic or environmental factors of two different variables can be larger than the phenotypic correlations. Phenotypic level includes genetic and environmental components. If the phenotypic links, for example between personality and religiousness, are primarily genetically mediated, then the genetic correlations are larger and the environmental correlations are smaller than the phenotypic links. Consequently, the explained genetic variance component is larger than the explained phenotypic variance.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstr. 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany

    Christian Kandler & Rainer Riemann

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  1. Christian Kandler
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  2. Rainer Riemann
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Correspondence to Christian Kandler.

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Edited by Danielle Dick.

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Kandler, C., Riemann, R. Genetic and Environmental Sources of Individual Religiousness: The Roles of Individual Personality Traits and Perceived Environmental Religiousness. Behav Genet 43, 297–313 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-013-9596-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-013-9596-8

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