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Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness: Religiosity and Obsessiveness

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Abstract

Within the field of psychology of religion there has been increasing interest to test established theoretical perspectives with empirical data. One such initiative is concerned with examining theories derived from Freud and has examined the relationship between religiosity and obsessionality. This initiative has become increasingly complex, using a variety of different measures of both religiosity (attitude, practice and orientation) and obsessionality (personality traits and symptoms). The findings can be summarized: More positive religious attitude and greater frequency of religious practice are associated with higher scores on measures of obsessional personality traits, but not with scores on a measure of obsessional symptoms. Further, the limited data on the relationship between religious orientation and obsessionality is contradictory.

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  1. Christopher Alan Lewis
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Lewis, C.A. Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness: Religiosity and Obsessiveness. Journal of Religion and Health 37, 49–62 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022913117655

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