Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 360–364

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Personality and Individual Differences

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Dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being and schizotypal personality

H.F. Unterrainer a,b,c,⇑, H.P. Huber c, I.M. Sorgo c, J. Collicutt d, A. Fink c
a
Addiction Research Society (A.R.S.), Graz, Austria
b
Grüner Kreis Society, Mönichkirchen, Austria
c
Institute of Psychology, Karl-Franzens University, Graz, Austria
d
Heythrop College, University of London, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Dimensions of religious/spiritual well being (RSWB; such as hope, forgiveness, or general religiosity) have
Received 10 December 2010 been examined comprehensively, and its positive relation to subjective well-being has been confirmed.
Received in revised form 28 February 2011 However, there also might be facets of RSWB linked to mental illness (e.g. delusional ideas). The aim of
Accepted 7 April 2011
the present study was to investigate the association between different dimensions of RSWB, magical
Available online 7 May 2011
thinking as an indicator of schizotypy and Eysencḱs three personality factors (psychoticism, extraversion,
neuroticism), as there might be facets of RSWB also linked to mental illness (e.g. delusional ideas). One
Keywords:
hundred and two undergraduate students (53 female, 49 male) completed the Multidimensional Inven-
Magical thinking
Personality factors
tory of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire in short version
Psychosis (EPQ-RK) together with the Magical Ideation Scale. Results indicate that facets of RSWB based on magical
Schizotypy thinking could also be understood as neurotic symptoms. This underlines the hypothesis, that there might
Spirituality be pathogenetic as well as salutogenetic aspects of religiosity/spirituality associated with personality and
subjective well-being.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction casually described as ‘‘measurable using empirical methods’’, while

There has been a growing interest in religious/spiritual issues in
the field of psychology and psychotherapy in recent years (Huguelet
& Koenig, 2009). Moreover, different dimensions of religiosity and
spirituality have been found to be substantially positively
associated with various indicators of mental health/illness and
personality (Unterrainer, Ladenhauf, Moazedi, Wallner-Liebmann,
& Fink, 2010). Most prominently, this association has been discussed
in a stress-coping framework by proposing different styles of
religious/spiritual coping (Pargament, 2007).
The concept of religious/spiritual well-being (RSWB) was devel-
oped by an interdisciplinary clinical research group at the Univer-
sity of Graz/Austria. It is the result of the principal research aim to
enhance bio-psycho-social approaches by a religious/spiritual
component (Unterrainer et al., 2010). Six dimensions of RSWB
were identified on the basis of comprehensive empirical data:
‘‘Hope Immanent’’, ‘‘Forgiveness’’, ‘‘Experiences of Sense and
Meaning’’ as parameters of well-being concerning the immanent
area, ‘‘Hope Transcendent’’, ‘‘General Religiosity’’ and ‘‘Connected-
ness’’ concerning the transcendent area. ‘‘Immanent’’ can be
⇑ Corresponding author at: Addiction Research Society, Geidorfgürtel 20/4/10,
Graz 8010, Austria. Tel.: +43 699 123 777 34; fax: +43 519 79 40.
E-mail address: human.unterrainer@uni-graz.at (H.F. Unterrainer).
the ‘‘transcendent’’ area refers to a non-measurable, super-natural,
transpersonal realm of reality (for a more detailed description of
the development of this scale and its conceptual underpinning
see Unterrainer et al., 2010). In this context religious/spiritual
well-being can be described, as the ability to experience and inte-
grate meaning and purpose in existence through a connectedness
with self, others or a power greater than oneself (Unterrainer,
Ladenhauf, Wallner-Liebmann, & Fink, 2011).
According to Meehl (1962, p. 54, see Eckblad & Chapman, 1983,
p. 215), ‘‘Magical Ideation’’ might be described as ‘‘belief, quasi-
belief, or semi-serious entertainment of the possibility that events
which, according to the causal concept of this culture, cannot have
a causal relation with each other, might somehow nevertheless do
so’’. The term ‘‘Schizotypy’’ (as a short form of ‘‘schizophreny
phenotype’’) was first coined by Rado (1953) to characterise per-
sons showing eccentric personality traits, similar to some of the
symptoms of schizophrenia. Furthermore schizotypy might be
best described as a multifactorial construct, as three or even four
factors (paranormal experiences and beliefs (including magical
thinking), cognitive failures, introvertive anhedonia, asocial behav-
iour) can be identified consistently (Goulding, 2004). An increased
amount of ‘‘Magical Ideation’’ as an indicator of schizotypy has
been found among persons prone for schizophrenia (Chapman,
Chapman, Kwapil, Eckblad, & Zinser, 1994). Beside being linked to

0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.007
 H.F. Unterrainer et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 360–364
psychopathology a higher amount of magical thinking might be
associated with creativity as a positive facet of schizotypy (Fisher
et al., 2004). According to Smith, Riley, and Peters (2009, p. 479)
this ‘‘continuum view of psychosis proposes that psychotic symp-
toms are the severe expression of schizotypal traits that are nor-
mally distributed in the general population’’. Up to now
numerous scales have been developed to assess the various as-
pects of the schizotypy concept and its multifactorial structure
(Gruzelier, 1996; Vollema & van den Bosch, 1995; White, Joseph,
& Alastair, 1995). Furthermore, the structure of schizotypy has
been found to parallel the tree-factor model of schizophrenia (Lid-
dle, 1987; Peters, 2010). Schizophrenia can be characterised as a
specific form of psychiatric diagnosis (e.g. paranoid schizophre-
nia), while the term psychosis is used to refer to a broader group
of psychotic disorders, e.g. schizophreniform disorder, schizoaffec-
tive disorder, delusional disorder or brief psychotic disorder
(Mitchell & Roberts, 2009).
In this study we address facets of a ‘‘schizotypal personality’’
trait. In contrast, Raine and Benishay (1995) describe schizotypal
personality disorders as representing a serious personality distur-
bance that borders on the major psychoses and might be closely re-
lated to schizophrenia. Furthermore a schizotypal disorder is
characterised by eccentric behaviour and anomalies of thinking
and affect which resemble those seen in schizophrenia, though
no definite and characteristic schizophrenic anomalies have
occurred at any stage. No dominant or typical disturbance can be
described, but McGlashan (1987, see Raine & Benishay, 1995) has
noted, that odd communication, paranoid ideation and social isola-
tion might be taken as the core symptoms.
Eysencḱs model of personality (Eysenck, 1992) consists of three
broad personality factors: ‘‘Psychoticism’’ (solitary, troublesome,
cruel, inhumane personality traits), ‘‘Extraversion’’ (sociable, care-
free, optimistic, sensation seeking personality traits) and ‘‘Neurot-
icism’’ (anxious, worrying, moody and depressive personality
traits). Furthermore, there is a large body of evidence that higher
religiosity scores are associated with lower psychoticism scores
in adults (Kay, 1981; White et al., 1995) as well as in children
and adolescents (Francis, 1993), higher amounts of religiosity
were obtained for ‘‘Extraversion’’, whereas no relevant associa-
tions were found with respect to ‘‘Neuroticism’’. According to Ey-
senck (1992) the association between religiosity and psychoticism
might be taken as a function of conditioning, as religiosity belongs
to the domain of tender minded attitudes. People who score low
on ‘‘Psychoticism’’ are known to condition more readily. According
to Johnson (1983), ‘‘Psychoticism’’ represents a continuum of con-
ventionality or conformity versus nonconformity. This might ex-
plain the divergent relationship between ‘‘Psychoticism’’ and
religiosity vs. spirituality. Moreover, Eysenck (1992) described
psychoticism as representing a dimension of aggressiveness de-
fined at its far ends of schizophrenia. Thus, higher scores on religi-
osity should be associated with lower levels on schizophrenic-
relevant measures. Similarly, Maltby and Day (2001, p. 187) noted
a ‘‘wealth of information, that suggests that low psychoticism is
fundamental to religiosity across a number of cultures’’. However,
there are also conflicting results in this field of research: Caird
(1987) found no significant relationship between mystical experi-
ences (as an indicator for magical thinking) and the three person-
ality dimensions, whereas Eckblad and Chapman (1983) reported
magical thinking to be substantially associated with the Eysenck
Psychoticism Scale (r = .32, p < .05). Similarly, Farias, Claridge,
and Lalljee (2005) reported a substantial relationship between
New Age practices/beliefs and schizotypal personality traits, char-
acterised by magical ideation, a cognitive disposition towards
looseness of associations, and emotional hypersensitivity. How-
ever, traditional religiosity was found to be unrelated to all these
personality indices.
361
This study was designed to investigate the relationship between
different dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being, magical
thinking and Eysencḱs factors of personality. As magical thinking
represents positive as well as negative aspects of schizotypy, we
would be also able to gain insights into salutogenetic and pathoge-
netic kinds of religiosity and spirituality, which could be taken as
facets of personality and subjective well-being or even as a coping
resource for dealing with a serious disease.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants were 102 undergraduate students from the Univer-
sity of Graz; 53(52%) were female and 49(48%) male. The partici-
pants were in the age range between 18 and 32 years (M = 23.82,
SD = 2.98). German as first language was an inclusion criterion.
53(52%) students belonged to the faculty of natural sciences,
49(48%) to the faculty of humanities. 20(19.6%) were studying Eng-
lish language, 20(19.6%) Biology, 20(19.6%) Psychology, 9(8.8%)
Mathematics, 9(8.8%) Philosophy and 24(23.6%) reported other lan-
guage studies.
2.2. Psychometric measures
2.2.1. Dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being
The degree of religious/spiritual well-being was assessed using a
newly developed instrument, the Multidimensional Inventory for
Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB 48) (Unterrainer et al.
2010). The MI-RSWB 48 consists in total of 48 items and 6 subscales
(‘‘Hope Immanent’’, ‘‘Forgiveness’’, ‘‘Experiences of Sense and
Meaning’’, ‘‘General Religiosity’’, ‘‘Connectedness’’, ‘‘Hope Tran-
scendent’’). Each subscale consists of eight items. The internal con-
sistency of the total scale is .89 (Cronbach’s a; for all subscales
Cronbach’s a > .7) in the present study. Some marker-items for
the respective subscales are given as examples in order to illustrate
the meaning of the dimensions: ‘‘General Religiosity’’: ‘‘My faith
gives me a feeling of security’’; ‘‘Connectedness’’: ‘‘I have
experienced the feeling of being absorbed into something greater’’;
‘‘Forgiveness’’: ‘‘There are things which I cannot forgive’’(coded
reversely); ‘‘Experiences of Sense and Meaning’’: ‘‘I have experi-
enced true (authentic) feelings’’; ‘‘Hope Immanent’’: ‘‘I view the
future with optimism’’; ‘‘Hope Transcendent’’: ‘‘I often think about
the fact that I will have to leave behind my loved ones.’’ (coded
reversely). There is convincing evidence that more religiously ori-
ented subscales (e.g. ‘‘General Religiosity’’ or ‘‘Hope Transcendent’’)
are associated differently with parameters of personality and sub-
jective well-being compared to more spiritually oriented subscales
(e.g. ‘‘Hope immanent’’ or ‘‘Forgiveness’’; Dimensions of RSWB were
found to substantially related to Big Five personality factors and
varying indicators of psychological well-being. For a more detailed
description of the development and psychometric properties of the
scale see Unterrainer et al., 2010).
2.3. Factors of personality
We administered a short version of the Eysenck Personality
Questionnaire (EPQ-RK; Ruch, 1999), which measures the person-
ality factors ‘‘Psychoticism’’ (14 items), ‘‘Extraversion’’ (12 items)
and ‘‘Neuroticism’’ (12 items). The EPQ-RK also consists of a so-
called ‘‘Lie’’-scale, which, however, was not used in this study, as
for instance Maltby and Day (2001) reported no relevant associa-
tions between the ‘‘Lie’’-scale and several indicators of spirituality.
All three subscales have robust psychometric properties (Cron-
bach’s a ranging from .83 to.85 in the present study). Gender and
362 H.F. Unterrainer et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 360–364
age specific norm values are available for the employed version of
the scale (Ruch, 1999).
2.4. Magical ideation
The magical ideation scale was developed by Eckblad and
Chapman (1983) and consists of 30 Items. In this context, magical
ideation might be described as belief in a number of supernatural
influences, which might enjoy some sub-cultural support (e.g.
thought transmission or reincarnation). A few items tap magical
beliefs that receive little or no sub-cultural support (e.g. presence
of a secret message in the behaviors of others). According to Eck-
blad and Chapman (1983), students who score very high on the
magical ideation scale (1.91 SD above the mean) also reported
more psychotic episodes. The scale showed convincing psychomet-
ric properties (Cronbach’s a > .81 in different samples). The items
for the English version of the scale can be found at Eckblad and
Chapman (1983). For this study we used a German translation of
the scale (Cronbach’s a = .81 in the present study).
For statistical analyses purposes, Pearson’s correlation coeffi-
cient was calculated. Moreover, structural equation modelling
was conducted.
3. Results
As indicated in Table 1 there were several significant correla-
tions between dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being, factors
of personality and magical ideation: ‘‘Extraversion’’ was found to
be associated with ‘‘Hope Immanent’’(r = .50; p < .001), ‘‘Experi-
ences of Sense and Meaning’’ (r = .41; p < .001), ‘‘Connectedness
(r = .21; p < .05) and the total score of ‘‘Religious/Spiritual Well-
Being’’ (r = .37, p < .001). ‘‘Neuroticism’’ turned out to be negatively
related to ‘‘Hope Immanent’’(r = .31, p < .01) ‘‘Hope Transcen-
dent’’ (r = .36, p < .001) and positively related to ‘‘Connectedness’’
(r = .30, p < .01). ’’Magical Thinking’’ was significantly correlated
with the total score of ‘‘Religious/Spiritual Well-Being’’(r = .20;
p < .05) and especially to the MI-RSWB dimension ‘‘Connected-
ness’’ (r = .46, p < .001).
Finally, we investigated the research question as to how reli-
gious/spiritual well-being and magical thinking can be predicted
by the personality factors. To this end, we performed structural
equation modelling using the Eysenck dimensions along with the
total MI-RSWB score as well as the Magical ideation score as
dependent variables. As depicted in Fig. 1, dimensions of ‘‘Reli-
gious/Spiritual Well-Being’’ might be best predicted by Eysenck’s
personality factors through a higher amount of ‘‘Extraversion’’,
while there was no association found with ‘‘Psychoticism’’ and
‘‘Neuroticism’’. ‘‘Magical Thinking’’ was found to be best predicted
through a higher level of ‘‘Neuroticism’’ together with a marginally
Table 1
Correlations between religious/spiritual well-being, factors of personality and magical thinking (N = 102).
Psychoticism
HI .08
FO .04
SM .00
GR .11
CO .07
HT .07
RSWB .05
MT .13
Notes: HI, Hope Immanent; FO, Forgiveness; SM, Experiences of Sense and Meaning; GR, General Religiosity; CO, Connectedness; HT, Hope Transcendent; RSWB, Religious/
Spiritual Well-Being; MT, Magical Thinking.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
lower amount of ‘‘Psychoticism’’. No association was found with
‘‘Extraversion’’. Notably, RSWB might be also positively predicted
through a higher amount of ‘‘Magical Thinking’’.
4. Discussion
In this study we present results concerning the relationship be-
tween different dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being and
magical thinking, based on Eysencḱs three factors personality con-
cept by using data obtained in a student sample.
In previous studies, dimensions of religion/spiritual well-being
(using the MI-RSWB) were investigated exhaustively in different
clinical and non-clinical samples, and were mostly confirmed as
being positively associated with mental health (Unterrainer et al.,
2010). An interesting and perhaps unexpected finding in the pres-
ent study is the relation of MI-RSWB dimension ‘‘Connectedness’’
with Neuroticism and Magical Thinking. This finding takes the dis-
cussion away from Psychoticism and moves it towards Neuroti-
cism (see Table 1). Thus, ‘‘Connectedness’’, defined as the feeling
of being at one with oneself, other persons, with the environment
or even with a higher power might represent several aspects of
‘‘Magical Thinking’’, at least in certain populations. For instance,
‘‘Connectedness’’ also was found to be comparatively high among
addiction patients, whereas addicts usually score lower in all other
dimensions of RSWB (see Unterrainer et al., 2010 for a more in-
detailed discussion). Furthermore, this result substantially ac-
counts for the relevant relationship between the total score of
‘‘Religious/Spiritual Well-Being’’ and ‘‘Magical Thinking’’, which it-
self turned out to be positively associated with ‘‘Neuroticism’’ (see
Fig. 1). Perhaps individuals high on ‘‘Connectedness’’ are anxious
about being connected to other people (anxious attachment), as
they believe their thoughts are connected to the universe, allowing
them to unrealistically think things into existence.
Notably, ‘‘Magical Thinking’’ was not found to be related with
any indicator of psychological well-being (e.g. ‘‘Hope immanent’’,
‘‘Forgiveness’’ or ‘‘Extraversion’’). In light of this finding, Magical
Thinking should not be taken as a symptom of mental illness at
first, as positive components of schizotypy (e.g. associated with
artistic creativity; see Johnson, 1983) can be found in the literature
(Fisher et al., 2004). This result should be noted as being of partic-
ular importance, because in this case, religious/spiritual well-being
showed itself to be a potential indicator of psychological strain. Of
course, several dimensions of RSWB (e.g. ‘‘Hope Immanent’’ and
‘‘Hope Transcendent’’) were still substantially associated with
‘‘Extraversion’’ (as an indicator of mental health).
Interestingly, we observed no significant correlation between
‘‘Psychoticism’’ and any other variable (see Table 1 and Fig. 1). Gen-
erally, this result confirms the huge number of critics concerning
the ‘‘Psychoticism’’ dimension for being conceptualised as too
Extraversion Neuroticism Magical Thinking
.50*** .31** .12
.08 .05 .17
.41*** .05 .08
.13 .15 .07
.21* .30** .46***
.18 .36*** .02
.37*** .03 .20*
.02 .28** –
 H.F. Unterrainer et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 51 (2011) 360–364
e1 e2 e3
General Religiosity Forgiveness Hope Immanent
,59 ,57
,67
Religious/Spiritual
Well-Being
,08 -,09
,38
Psychoticism Extraversion Neuroticism
-,06
-,14
e7 e8
e9
Fig. 1. Structural equation modelling for dimensions of religious/spiritual well-being and magical thinking predicted by factors of personality. Notes: Standardised regression
weights; Model indices: v2 = 3359.71; p < .001; CFI = .07; RSMEA = .88; e = error variances (scores were removed in favour of increased legibility).
broad (Sorgo, 2005). For instance, almost no association was found
between ‘‘Psychoticism’’ and ‘‘Magical Thinking’’. This stands in
marked contrast to the assumption that ‘‘Magical Thinking’’ should
be conceived as closely related to schizophrenic symptoms.
However, it remains also unclear, to which extent ‘‘Magical Think-
ing’’ can be accepted as an adequate indicator for schizotypy or
even for schizophrenia. Very probably, at least some facets of
schizotypy might be assessed accurately by employing the Magical
Ideation Scale. After all, ‘‘Magical Thinking’’ turned out to be a far
better predictor of RSWB than ‘‘Psychoticism’’ (see Fig. 1). In gen-
eral, some illusions/delusions are harmful, some neither harmful
nor beneficial, and some, positive. On the one hand, depressives
turned out to be more realistic than happy optimists (Ackermann &
DeRubeis, 1991). On the other hand, there is literature on positive
illusions, which indicates that somewhat unrealistic optimism and
overestimation of control over the future are related to health (e.g.
Weinstein, 1989). And yet, extremes in positive thinking, wherein
people believe that their thoughts alone literally create reality (this
is magical thinking par excellence) can lead to very unhealthy
behaviors (e.g. Dillard, McCaul, & Klein, 2006). At this point, more
research on clinical samples by employing several additional mea-
sures for mental illness (e.g. depression or anxiety) might provide
deepened insights. Moreover, in order to take further steps of con-
current and discriminant RSWB scale validation, similarities and
differences to other kinds of belief or quasi-belief systems have
363
e4 e5 e6
Connectedness Experiences of
Hope Transcendent
Sense and Meaning
,64 ,27
,57
e0
,30 ,20
Magical e10
Thinking
to be characterised much more thoroughly. Thus, as White et al.
(1995) argued, future research on religiosity and schizotypy has
to take into account the fact that religiosity itself is multifactorial
(e.g. in this study we found almost no correlation between the
RSWB subdimension ‘‘General Religiosity’’ and all other personality
indicators) and should distinguish at least between religious be-
liefs and experiences. Moreover, by relating several dimensions
of RSWB and magical thinking to factors of personality, we hope
to contribute to this ongoing discussion concerning the useful-
ness/importance of considering religious/spiritual topics in mental
health and personality research. Our findings implicate (co-)exist-
ing pathogenetic and salutogenetic aspects of religiosity and spiri-
tuality interacting with dimensions of subjective well-being and
personality. Thus, dimensions of RSWB might be taken as indica-
tors of a positive, schizotypal or maybe creative personality facets
as well as evidence for a problematic or even disordered personal-
ity structure.
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