The psychological type profile of practising Greek Orthodox churchgoers in London

Abstract

Within the psychology of religion, there is growing interest in the theoretical and empirical contributions of psychological-type theory. For example, a series of studies, conducted using different measures of psychological type in several different cultural contexts, have begun to chart the psychological-type profile of practising Christian churchgoers. The aim of the present study was to profile a sample of practising Greek Orthodox Christians in London. A sample of 105 practising Greek Orthodox churchgoers (49 males and 56 females) completed the Francis Psychological-Type Scales. The sample showed a preference for introversion over extraversion, for sensing over intuition, for thinking over feeling, and for judging over perceiving. Just under a third of the sample reported as being ISTJ (27% of men and 29% of women). While earlier research has revealed over-representation of feeling types among male Anglican churchgoers, the present study revealed over-representation of thinking types among female Orthodox churchgoers.

Keywords:

• psychological type
• Greek Orthodox Christians
• Francis Psychological-Type Scale