Does Personality Type Influence Religious Belief?

Simply interacting with others--or reading a variety of comments online--clearly shows that people think differently. If you've noticed that there seem to be some distinct personality types, you are not alone. Psychologists have often tried to categorize personality types, and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is perhaps the most well known method. What can your MBTI type say about the way you think? Could it be a driving force behind your religious belief, or non-belief?

The idea that personality type may influence religious belief or spirituality is not a new one. A quick Google search turns up many online discussions and several theories about which religious or spiritual beliefs are most common for certain types. There are even a variety of books that claim to match personality types with their ideal religions or spiritual paths.

While many of these books look for spiritual preferences among personality types, none of them seem to address the question of whether personality type can also be related to a person not being religious or spiritual. The set premise appears to be that all people need spirituality, even if they do not believe in a personal god or adhere to a specific religion.*

However, it is relatively easy to find informal, online discussions which do wager guesses about some personality types being linked to atheism. One common theory is that INTPs (or NTs in general) are prone to atheism. This immediately caught my attention, because I am an INTP who is also an atheist.

Before discussing the possibility of a link between personality type and religious belief, it helps to understand some of the theory behind the Myers-Briggs approach. Essentially, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is based on psychiatrist Carl Jung's basic personality archetypes.

On the MBTI, answering a series of questions indicates where you would fall in four separate areas: Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I); Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N); Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F); and Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P). This leaves you with a combination of four letters (INTP, ESFJ, etc.). There are 16 possible combinations and each corresponds to a particular MBTI personality type.

Understanding the tendencies associated with your MBTI type is said to help you in many areas of life. You can discover more about the way you think, learn and interact with others. Your MBTI type can help you find a career that is suited to your way of thinking, or help family members have better relationships. So why not use MBTI type to find religious or spiritual tendencies?

For those familiar with Myers-Briggs personality types, it's easy to imagine a relationship between INTPs and atheism. David Keirsey, author of the popular book Please Understand Me II, labels INTP as "Architects." In his description of INTPs, Keirsey says:

"For Architects, the world exists primarily to be analyzed, understood, explained - and re-designed. . . . What is important for Architects is that they grasp fundamental principles and natural laws, and that their designs are elegant, that is, efficient and coherent."

INTPs are often said to be pragmatists who have little tolerance for nonsense or non-precise language. They are natural skeptics who look for truth in everything, and will only call something "truth" if it has been adequately proven. Furthermore, even "true" concepts are still open for further analysis and redesign if new evidence is presented.

All of that may sound suspiciously similar to some of the more vocal atheists in our society. Keirsey also presents another point about INTPs, which might sound like common interactions with some atheists (myself included):

"Architects regard all discussions as a search for understanding, and believe their function is to eliminate inconsistencies, which can make communication with them an uncomfortable experience for many."

While some of these points may seem to indicate a possible connection between INTPs and atheism, that observation is in no way enough evidence to prove that a correlation exists. There are INTPs who believe in some form of god. There are atheists whose personalities fall into any of the other 15 MBTI types.

In addition to wondering if personality type influences religious belief, a second interesting question is whether religious belief influences personality type.

When taking tests to determine your MBTI type, you are asked to choose your preferences between given statements. It's possible that the way you interpret the test could be influenced by your religious upbringing, or by your current search for religious answers. If you have been taught to disregard your own self-assessments in favor of the preferences that religious leaders impose, you might even have trouble completing the test at all.

A lifetime of religious indoctrination certainly influences your outlook, experiences and later life choices. But can it change your basic personality? Jung believed that distinct personality types are present at birth and unchangeable. If that's true, could the cognitive dissonance that some believers struggle against be caused by indoctrination into a religion that is at odds with their fundamental personality and their inherent approach toward thinking itself?

Identity is a complex subject. It involves your physical and mental abilities, your experiences and many other factors including your cultural identity and religious identity. Personality typing may not hold all the answers, but, at the very least, it does show that there are fundamental differences in the way people think. And that, in turn, could have some influence on the way people believe.

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*I personally disagree with this premise. I find wonder and beauty in the world around me. I'm often amazed by the actions of other people, and feel acute empathy for all life (humans, animals and even plants). I even enjoy the clarity and calm that comes with meditation. But none of this feels like "spirituality" to me. It simply feels like a reasonable reaction to the natural world and everything in it.