The Personality Characteristics of Anglican Clergymen and Clergywomen: The Search for Sex Differences

The aim of this study is to compare the personality profile of Anglican clergymen and clergywomen with the general population profile. Data were provided by 235 clergymen and 54 clergywomen serving in the Church in Wales who completed the short-form Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. These data demonstrated that the usual sex differences found in the population as a whole were not reproduced among the clergy, since there were no significant differences between clergymen and clergywomen in terms of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism and the lie scale. Compared with the population norms, the two key differences were that clergymen recorded significantly lower psychoticism scores (closer to the female norms) and clergywomen recorded significantly lower neuroticism scores (closer to the male norms). The implications of these findings are discussed for the development of the ministry of men and women in the church.