Summary by Theresia Bedard and the North American Research Committee
Research Study Highlights:
- An analysis of the subgroups in a large sample of undergraduates provided evidence for five different subgroups of groups of people in regards to religiousness and Dark Triad traits: prosocial, antisocial, moderate, low religious, and struggling religious.
- Individuals that belong to the prosocial religious group demonstrate greater kindness, concern for others, intellectual humility and altruism towards others in comparison to individuals that belong in the antisocial religious group.
- The antisocial religious group had the highest scores on the Dark Triad traits, and were less likely to help others, were indifferent towards the suffering of others, and were more likely to be less humble about their own beliefs – they were less likely to accept the viewpoint of others, change their views, and respect other’s views, and were more likely to believe their own viewpoint was superior.
- This research provides evidence that having a religious identity does not necessarily indicate that one will be prosocial or kind – rather, the Dark Triad traits may be a nuanced personality factor that impacts whether individuals behave in prosocial ways that are consistent with their spiritual/religious beliefs or not.
Background
The Dark Triad consists of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Psychopathy is a form of pathological personality associated with knowing right from wrong but not caring – people with psychopathy are impulsive, manipulative, and have low empathy. Narcissism is centered on an inflated ego – it includes feelings of entitlement, superiority, and grandiosity. Machiavellianism is a concept that captures a willingness to do whatever it takes to gain power/status; it consists of being manipulative, mean, and deceptive.
This study used a person-centered approach – that is, the researchers explored the possibility that there may be different subtypes among individuals who identify as being religious than among those who do not identify as being religious. Some studies have found that religiousness is related to being prosocial (e.g., helping others, being kind), while others have found it is not. For instance, prior studies have found that religious beliefs are related to having altruistic attitudes, but not altruistic behaviors (Ji et al., 2006); and that religiousness is related to having altruism only for others with the same religious identity as oneself (Preston & Ritter, 2013). Thus, Lee and colleagues (2024) set out to explore if there would be different groups of religious/non-religious people in terms of how prosocial they were, as well as information about their mental health, intellectual humility, altruism, and indifference.
Why was the study done?
Prior research has been limited in exploring the relationships between religiousness and the Dark Triad traits. The researchers for this study used a person-centered approach, exploring if there are any subtypes or different groupings of people based on how religious they were or not and whether these people displayed high levels of Dark Triad traits or low levels of Dark Triad traits.
How was the study done?
There was a larger research study called, “the Baylor Faith and Character Study” which the information for this study was collected from. They had participants complete various questionnaires at two different time points. At Time 1 (the beginning of the study), they had freshman and senior undergraduates from a religious, private university fill out a survey that had various questionnaires in it. Time 2 occurred two years after Time 1.
There were a total of 1,006 participants in the study, with 769 of them females (76.4% of the sample). The sample was also racially diverse. For religious identity, 88% of the participants identified as Christian, 5.6% as non-Christian religious, and 6.4% as nonreligious.
These students were given a survey which included questions about their mental health (depression, anxiety, and stress), religious practices, beliefs, spiritual struggles, identity, and tendencies to experience intellectual humility, altruism, and indifference.
What did the researchers find?
They found that there are five subtypes of individuals in this study:
1) Low Religious (these people had the lowest religious identity scores, had the greatest spiritual struggles, and scored moderate on the Dark Triad traits);
2) Struggling Religious (these people had moderate scores on religiousness, scored high on experiencing spiritual struggles, and scored low on Dark Triad traits);
3) Moderates (these people had scored in the mid-range on religiousness, spiritual struggles, and Dark Triad traits);
4) Prosocial Religious (these people had the highest religiousness, lowest scores on spiritual struggles, and the lowest scores on the Dark Triad traits), and
5) Antisocial Religious (these people scored high on religiousness, low on religious struggles, and high on the Dark Triad traits).
They found that the antisocial and prosocial religious groups scored the highest on religiousness – but the antisocial religious group scored highest on the Dark Triad traits, while the prosocial religious group had the lowest scores on the Dark Triad traits. Also, in comparison to the prosocial religious group, the antisocial religious group scored higher on mental health concerns and indifference. The antisocial religious group also scored lower on altruism and intellectual humility in comparison to the prosocial religious group.
Individuals that were grouped into the low religious subgroup were more likely to have self-identified as non-religious or non-Christian religion, as well as having higher scores in intellectual humility than the prosocial religious group. They also had moderate-to-low scores on Dark Triad traits, mental health concerns, altruism, and indifference.
Individuals that were grouped into moderates had mid-range scores on all factors: religious identity, intellectual humility, Dark Triad traits, mental health concerns, altruism and indifference.
Finally, the struggling religious group had the highest scores on mental health concerns in comparison to all the other groups (low religious, moderates, prosocial religious, and antisocial religious) at Time 1.
The results of the study at Time 2 (two years later), included some notable findings.
The researchers found that, at Time 2, both the prosocial and antisocial religious groups tended to have demonstrate greater vertical faith maturity (feeling an increasing bonding or connection to one’s faith) and Christian beliefs over time, and they tended to stay religious over time.
They also found that, at Time 2, the antisocial religious group still had high scores on the Dark Triad traits, and higher levels of mental health concerns (stress, anxiety and depression) in comparison to the prosocial religious group. The antisocial religious group also had lower scores on intellectual humility than the prosocial religious group. In particular, the antisocial religious group was characterized by intellectual overconfidence, a tendency to believe their beliefs or ideas are better than the ideas of others.
What are the implications?
This research provides evidence that there are different types of profiles in regard to one’s level of religiousness and personality. They found evidence that, not only does being religious sometimes converge with being prosocial (e.g., the prosocial religious group were individuals that identified as being religious but also demonstrated tendencies to being altruistic, kind, and caring towards others), but there are some individuals who report being highly religious but are also antisocial. These people identify as being religious but tend to be selfish, indifferent towards other’s problems, and have tendencies towards being unwilling to change their viewpoints. They tend to believe their beliefs are superior to and lack respect for the viewpoints of others; they may also be disagreeable when someone challenges their beliefs. The researchers also found that these personality profiles held up over the span of two years, suggesting that these personality characteristics are relatively stable over time. The researchers suggest that this finding may indicate that the Dark Triad traits may be an important factor that helps to distinguish those highly religious who are generally prosocial (kind and compassionate towards others), from those who are self-righteous, indifferent, and unkind towards others.
The researchers conclude that using a person-centered approach by categorizing religious identity along with personality into subgroups has allowed an explanation for the nuance of why some prior research has resulted in mixed findings on the relationship between prosocial acts and religiousness. In particular, this research provides evidence that, although some individuals may identify as religious, they may not apply their beliefs (that encourage prosocial behaviors) in their own lives. Individuals that have high Dark Triad traits and also identify as being religious do not demonstrate prosocial, humble, or tolerant behaviors towards others.
The Study
Lee, Y., Ratchford, J. L., Ming, M. S., Al-Kire, R. L., Glanzer, P. L., Dougherty, K. D., Schnitker, S. A., & Park, C. L. (2024). A Person-Centered Approach to the Dark Triad Traits and Religiousness: Examining Differences in Intellectual Humility, Prosociality, and Mental Health in U.S. College Students. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 16(1), 93–103. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000486
Other References Cited
Ji, C. C., Pendergraft, L., & Perry, M. (2006). Religiosity, altruism, and altruistic hypocrisy: Evidence from protestant adolescents. Review of Religious Research, 48(2), 156–178. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20058130?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Preston, J. L., & Ritter, R. S. (2013). Different effects of religion and God on prosociality with the ingroup and outgroup. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(11), 1471–1483. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213499937
