This article was downloaded by: [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries]

On: 23 December 2014, At: 23:31

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Mental Health, Religion & Culture

Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cmhr20

The religious person revisited: cross-

cultural evidence from the HEXACO
model of personality structure
a b b
Naser Aghababaei , Jason Adam Wasserman & Drew Nannini
a
Department of Clinical Psychology, Allameh Tabataba’i
University, Tehran, Iran;
b
Department of Bioethics, Kansas City University of Medicine and
Biosciences, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Published online: 05 Nov 2012.

Click for updates

To cite this article: Naser Aghababaei, Jason Adam Wasserman & Drew Nannini (2014) The religious
person revisited: cross-cultural evidence from the HEXACO model of personality structure, Mental
Health, Religion & Culture, 17:1, 24-29, DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2012.737771

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2012.737771

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
 Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-
and-conditions
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014
 Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2014
Vol. 17, No. 1, 24–29, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2012.737771

The religious person revisited: cross-cultural evidence from the

HEXACO model of personality structure
Naser Aghababaeia*, Jason Adam Wassermanb and Drew Nanninib
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

a
Department of Clinical Psychology, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran;
b
Department of Bioethics, Kansas City University of Medicine and
Biosciences, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
(Received 14 August 2012; final version received 4 October 2012)

The relationship of religiousness with the HEXACO (Honesty-Humility,

Emotionality, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness)
model of personality was studied in Iran and the United States. Correlations of
personality factors and religiousness were generally similar across the two
societies. In both countries, religiousness was associated with higher scores on
Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. The
Honesty-Humility factor was one of the strongest correlates of religiousness in
both countries. These findings support Saroglou’s observation that the main
personality characteristics of religiousness are consistent across different religious
contexts and personality measures and models.
Keywords: culture; religiousness; personality; HEXACO Personality Inventory

Introduction
Determining how religiousness is related to personality has been an important starting point
for the scientific study of religion. In the last two decades, many researchers have
investigated whether individual differences in religiousness are associated with personality
traits. Their studies show that various aspects of religiosity are related to higher
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and (to a lesser extent) Extraversion from the Big Five
model of personality structure (Emmons, Barrett, & Schnitker, 2008; Saroglou, 2002, 2010).
Recently, cross-cultural evidence has accumulated in support of a six-dimensional
framework of personality structure called HEXACO (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality,
eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness). This new model of person-
ality has shown advantages over the Big Five, particularly with regard to variables related
to selfish exploitation of others. The proposed sixth factor, Honesty-Humility, is defined in
the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised by facets of sincerity, fairness, greed-
avoidance, and modesty (Ashton & Lee, 2005, 2009). Honesty-Humility has been shown to
be an important social factor, facilitating interpersonal relationships, promoting academic
and job performance, and underlying socio-political attitudes and activities (De Vries, De
Vries, & Born, 2011; Johnson, Rowatt, & Petrini, 2011; Lee & Ashton, 2012; Lee, Ashton,
& De Vries, 2005; Markowitz, Goldberg, Ashton, & Lee, 2012; Sheppard & Boon, 2012;

*Corresponding author. Email: naseragha@gmail.com

ß 2012 Taylor & Francis

 Mental Health, Religion & Culture 25

Zettler, Hilbig, & Haubrich, 2011). Honesty-Humility facets also are highly prized human
dispositions in many religions and religious persons therefore are expected to report higher
scores on this factor. Preliminary studies in Canada (Lee, Ogunfowora, & Ashton, 2005)
and Iran (Aghababaei, 2012) have established the correlation between religiosity/
spirituality and Honesty-Humility, but also raised additional questions. In both the
Iranian and the Canadian studies, this factor was the strongest personality correlate of
religiousness. However, the strength of this relationship in Iran was almost twice as large
as it was in the Canadian sample. Such results raise the question of whether the religiosity-
personality links are stronger in some cultures than in others. Since these studies used
different measures of both the HEXACO inventory and religiousness, it is unclear whether
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

this is a function of measurement design or reflects a genuine cross-cultural difference.

In this paper, we explore the religiousness-personality links by examining factors of the
HEXACO model of personality structure in two different cultures, Iran and the United
States, using same measures and matching samples. Although Honesty-Humility is
expected to correlate with higher levels of religiousness in both cultures, we made no
hypothesis related to strength of this relationship.

Methods
Participants
Participants were student volunteers from two state universities in Iran and the United
States. Of the Iranian participants (N ¼ 165; M age ¼ 23.3 years), 58 persons (i.e., 35.2%)
were female. Of the American participants (N ¼ 156; M age ¼ 20.9 years), 96 people (i.e.,
61.5%) were female. Participants completed the questionnaire booklets which were
administered to groups of various sizes in classrooms. For Iranian sample, we
administered the Persian versions of these measures which have been previously validated
in Iranian samples.

Measures
The HEXACO Personality Inventory
The HEXACO factors were measured using the 60-item, self-report HEXACO Personality
Inventory-Revised (Ashton & Lee, 2009). This inventory has shown to be a valid and
reliable measure of personality in both English (Ashton & Lee, 2009) and Persian
(Aghababaei, 2012). Coefficient alpha of the HEXACO factors ranged from .58 to .78 for
the Iranian sample, and from .68 to .80 for the US sample. A five-point Likert-type scale
was used.

Spirituality Self-Rating Scale

This 6-item measure is designed to reflect an intrinsic (as opposed to a more external
socially related) orientation to religiosity/spirituality. For example, items include, ‘‘I try
hard to live my life according to my religious beliefs’’ and ‘‘I enjoy reading about my
spirituality and/or my religion.’’ (Galanter et al., 2007). Coefficient alphas of the SSRS
were .90 and .92 for the Iranian and the US sample, respectively. A five-point Likert-type
scale was used.
 26 N. Aghababaei et al.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for and comparisons between variables for Iranian
and US samples.

Iran US
Variables M (SD) M (SD) F

Honesty-Humility 3.51 (.69) 3.46 (.54) .58

Emotionality 3.09 (.62) 3.25 (.64) 5.19*
Extraversion 3.46 (.68) 3.37 (.60) 1.46
Agreeableness 3.37 (.61) 3.32 (.57) .58
Conscientiousness 3.43 (.60) 3.67 (.59) 13.06**
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

Openness 3.53 (.56) 3.62 (.64) 1.74

Religiousness 3.59 (1.05) 3.46 (1.02) 1.13

Note: *p 5 .05, **p 5 .01.

Results
As Table 1 shows, the US sample reports higher levels of Emotionality and
Conscientiousness. The majority of participants in the US sample are female while
males comprise the majority in the Iranian sample. Previous studies have shown that
females score higher in Emotionality (e.g., Ashton & Lee, 2009). After controlling for
gender, there were no differences between the two groups in Emotionality (F ¼ .27,
p ¼ .59), whereas Conscientiousness was still higher in the US sample (F ¼ 7.32, p 5 .05).
There were not any notable differences in standard deviations were found across two
countries (see Table 1).
Personality-religiousness correlations are shown in Table 2, along with the partial
correlations after controlling for sex. The relationships between religiousness and
Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were significantly
positive in both samples. Honesty-Humility in both samples was one of the strongest
correlates of religiousness. The relationship of Emotionality and religiousness in the US
sample was significantly positive. However, when partial correlations were calculated,
controlling for participant sex, this relationship was no longer significant. Additionally,
examination of these correlations after using Fisher’s transformation showed no difference
in their size in either the Iranian or US samples.
Because some of the correlations between the HEXACO scales are higher than usual,
two regressions were performed to examine whether all correlations hold when entered
together with gender. As Table 3 shows, when regressing gender, along with the
personality factors, on religiousness, Honesty-Humility, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and
Openness remain significant in the Iranian sample. Among the US sample, Honesty-
Humility, Conscientiousness, and Openness remained significant. Also, in the US sample,
Emotionality and Agreeableness remained nearly significant (p ¼ .06).

Discussion
The present study explored the association between religiousness and the HEXACO
factors of personality in two different cultures. This comparative study has shown that
religious persons score higher on Honesty-Humility, Extroversion, Agreeableness and
Conscientiousness. Although these findings are in contrast with some studies showing
that individual differences in religiousness are independent of personality factors
 Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

Table 2. Correlations of personality factors with religiousness for Iranians (above diagonal) and Americans (below diagonal).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Honesty-Humility 1 .09 (.08) .20** (.20**) .32** (.32**) .35** (.36**) .17* (.18*) .29**(.28**) .03
2. Emotionality .10 (.05) 1 .22** (.27**) .08 (.09) .15* (.19*) .06 (.08) .06(.01) .28**
3. Extraversion .07 (.05) .05 (.13) 1 .28** (.28**) .38** (.38**) .38** (.37**) .23**(.21**) .12
4. Agreeableness .38** (.38**) .07 (.07) .13 (.14) 1 .11 (.11) .02 (.01) .31**(.31**) .04
5. Conscientiousness .14 (.11) .21** (.11) .36** (.34**) .01 (.01) 1 .27 ** (.26**) .19*(.18*) .09
6. Openness .10 (.11) .04 (.02) .06 (.07) .10 (.10) .17* (.19*) 1 .04(.05) .08
7. Religiousness .28** (.26**) .21** (.15) .21** (.19*) .21** (.21**) .27** (.24**) .13 (.12) 1 .17*
8. Gender .13 .43** .14 .01 .25** .06 .17* 1

Note: *p 5 .05, **p 5 .01, Gender coded 1 ¼ male and 0 ¼ female. Values in parentheses are sex-controlled correlations.
Mental Health, Religion & Culture
27
 28 N. Aghababaei et al.

Table 3. Statistics for variables regressed on religiosity.

Iran US

Variables B  R2 B  R2

Honesty-Humility .31 .21** 20** .36 .19* .23**

Emotionality .05 .03 .24 .15
Extraversion .26 .17* .22 .13
Agreeableness .33 .20* .26 .15
Conscientiousness .03 .01 .35 .20*
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

Openness 38 .21** .32 .20**

Gender .33 .15* .01 .01

Note: * p 5 .05, ** p 5 .01.

(e.g., Robbins, Francis, McIlroy, Clarke, & Pritchard, 2010), they are consistent with
many previous findings (for a review see Saroglou, 2010), including two previous
HEXACO studies (Aghababaei, 2012; Lee et al., 2005).
The direction of personality-religiousness relationships was identical across the two
countries and the strength of these relationships was not substantially different. Such
findings support the notion that the main personality characteristics of religiousness are
consistent across different religious contexts, and personality measures and models
(see Saroglou, 2010). Some fluctuation in the religiosity-personality links could be
explained, to some extent, by using different measures and constructs. For example, a
‘‘religious interest’’ measure may bring about notably stronger correlations than an
‘‘extrinsic religiosity’’ scale (Aghababaei, 2012).
As Saroglou (2010) describes, the main personality correlates of religiousness highlight
two of its broad functions: promoting (1) personal stability and (2) others’ welfare and
social harmony. The first function is related to Conscientiousness, while the second is
related to Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness. In particular, the latter embody
individual differences in two aspects of reciprocal altruism. Honesty-Humility corresponds
to the tendency to cooperate with another even when one could get away with defecting,
while Agreeableness to altruism even when reciprocation has not been forthcoming
(Ashton & Lee, 2005).
The positive relationship of religiousness with Extraversion may suggest that religion is
concerned with other key functions of human personality (e.g., social self-esteem and
liveliness). This may be more evident in religious persons reporting higher levels of
subjective well-being, a relatively stable quality which is related to Extraversion. However,
it should be noted that such studies could not answer the question of whether there is any
causal influence of religiosity on personality or rather that personality predisposes people
to be religious. Additionally, it has been shown that the former direction of influence is
more likely (Saroglou, 2010).
We used 60-item version of the HEXACO scales and their intercorrelations were, to
some extent, higher than usual. Use of the full scales might yield more discriminative
outcomes in the future. Another limitation of the present study was the use of a sample
consisting of only university students. They appear to have a more intellectual orientation
towards religion and spirituality and, therefore, tend to have higher scores on scales of
intrinsic orientation toward religiosity. Future research should examine greater diversity
 Mental Health, Religion & Culture 29

among individuals, as well as studying other cultures and religious societies. Such research
will further test the generalisability of the religious person profile.

References

Aghababaei, N. (2012). Religious, honest and humble: Looking for the religious person within the
HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 880–883.
Ashton, M.C., & Lee, K. (2005). Honesty-Humility, the Big Five, and the Five-Factor Model.
Journal of Personality, 73, 1321–1353.
Downloaded by [University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries] at 23:31 23 December 2014

Ashton, M.C., & Lee, K. (2009). The HEXACO–60: A short measure of the major dimensions of
personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 340–345.
De Vries, A., De Vries, R.E., & Born, M.P. (2011). Broad versus narrow traits: Conscientiousness
and Honesty–Humility as predictors of academic criteria. European Journal of Personality, 25,
336–348.
Emmons, R.A., Barrett, J.L., & Schnitker, S.A. (2008). Personality and the capacity for religious and
spiritual experience. In O.P. John, R.W. Robins, & L.A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality:
Theory and research (pp. 634–653). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
Galanter, M., Dermatis, H., Bunt, G., Williams, C., Trujillo, M., & Steinke, P. (2007). Assessment of
spirituality and its relevance to addiction treatment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 33,
257–264.
Johnson, M.K., Rowatt, W.C., & Petrini, L. (2011). A new trait on the market: Honesty–Humility as
a unique predictor of job performance ratings. Personality and Individual Differences, 50,
857–862.
Lee, K., & Ashton, M.C. (2012). Getting mad and getting even: Agreeableness and Honesty-
Humility as predictors of revenge intentions. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 596–600.
Lee, K., Ashton, M.C., & De Vries, R.E. (2005). Predicting workplace delinquency and integrity
with the HEXACO and Five-Factor models of personality structure. Human Performance, 18,
179–197.
Lee, K., Ogunfowora, B., & Ashton, M.C. (2005). Personality traits beyond the Big Five: Are they
within the HEXACO space? Journal of Personality, 73, 1437–1463.
Markowitz, E.M., Goldberg, L.R., Ashton, M.C., & Lee, K. (2012). Profiling the ‘‘pro-
environmental individual’’: A personality perspective. Journal of Personality, 80, 81–111.
Robbins, M., Francis, L., McIlroy, D., Clarke, R., & Pritchard, L. (2010). Three religious
orientations and five personality factors: An exploratory study among adults in England. Mental
Health, Religion & Culture, 13, 771––775.
Saroglou, V. (2002). Religion and the five factors of personality: A meta-analytic review. Personality
and Individual Differences, 32, 15–25.
Saroglou, V. (2010). Religiousness as a cultural adaptation of basic traits: A Five-Factor model
perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 108–125.
Sheppard, K.E., & Boon, S.D. (2012). Predicting appraisals of romantic revenge: The roles of
Honesty–Humility, Agreeableness, and vengefulness. Personality and Individual Differences, 52,
128–132.
Zettler, I., Hilbig, B.E., & Haubrich, J. (2011). Altruism at the ballots: Predicting political attitudes
and behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 45, 130–133.