The Desire for God: An Assessment of Seminarians' Spirituality Through the Lens of the “Big Five”

The purpose of the study was to investigate a personological profile of Roman Catholic seminarians characterized by a high and a low level of prayerful desire for God. One hundred twenty-one Roman Catholic seminarians were administered the Polish Adjective List (PAL; Szarota, 1995) to appraise the normal personality characteristics measured by the factors of Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness (O), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C), along with a measure of desire for closeness with God. Results suggest that the seminarians with a high level of desire for God, in terms of personality characteristics, tend to be more tender, self-sacrificing, magnanimous and good-natured (A) as well more conscientious, dutiful, prudent, and reliable (C) than their counterparts. The findings of the regression analysis suggested that the five personality domains explained the 11% variance of the seminarians desire to abide with God.