Religiosity, Gender and the Two Faces of Neuroticism

Abstract

Recent evidence has suggested that Eysenck’s neuroticism scales combine two components, one gender-free and one gender-related, and that the balance between these components varies from one edition of the scale to another. The present study explores the significance of this finding for the relationship between neuroticism and religiosity, itself a gender-related phenomenon, by calculating the correlation of each of six different measures of neuroticism with the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity, among a sample of 177 15- and 16-year-olds. The findings support the functional equivalence of the six measures of neuroticism, in spite of different levels of gender-related content, and provide further evidence for the view that neuroticism and religiosity are uncorrelated variables.