Mainstream personality psychology and the study of religion

In this commentary, I make some general observations about the study of personality and religion and some specific comments about individual articles from the perspective of contemporary personality psychology. Most of the authors represented here treat religion as a domain of human experience and behavior that can be understood in terms of familiar personality principles and processes. I therefore urge greater attention to the Five-Factor Model of personality traits, especially Openness to Experience, in understanding religious phenomena. Mainstream psychologists, including longitudinal researchers, behavior geneticists, and epidemiologists, should consider the inclusion of religious variables in their research designs.