Microsoft Word Complete article [10] versie e-thesis[1]. doc

 

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differing approach to religion: Literal Affirmation, Literal Disaffirmation, 

Symbolic Affirmation (also called Reductive Interpretation) and finally 

Symbolic Disaffirmation (also called Restorative Interpretation). 

 

Figure 1.  Wulff’s two dimensional model of religiosity (1991, 1997) 

 

 

 

Based on Wulff’s theory, Hutsebaut and his colleagues (Desimpelaere, 

Sulas, Duriez and Hutsebaut, 1999; Duriez and Hutsebaut, 2000; Hutsebaut, 

1996, 1996, & 2000) constructed the Post Critical Belief Scale (PCBS) as an 

operationalisation of his heuristic model.  Here, the four approaches to 

Christian religiosity of Orthodoxy, External Critique, Relativism and 

Second Naiveté map onto the four quadrants of Wulff’s model, respectively 

- Literal Affirmation, Literal Disaffirmation, Symbolic Affirmation and 

finally Symbolic Disaffirmation (Figure 2).  Only recently however, 

thorough assessments have been performed with regard to the validity of the 

PCBS construct. Duriez, Fontaine and Hutsebaut (2000) reported that it 

provides accurate measures of Wulff’s four approaches to religion and that 

the two components can be interpreted in terms of the dimensions Exclusion 

Inclusion of Transcendence 

Exclusion of Transcendence 

Literal 

Symbolic 

Literal 

Affirmation

Symbolic 

Affirmation

Literal  

Dis-

affirmation 

Symbolic  

Dis-

affirmation

 

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versus Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal versus Symbolic (Fontaine, 

Duriez, Luyten and Hutsebaut, 2003). 

 

 

Figure 2.   Hutsebaut’s Model of religiosity (1991, 1999) 

 

 

 

An important point of attention with regard to the previous studies (and 

results) in this area, such as those reported by Saroglou (2002) and by 

Peeters (2003a), is that prior to this new model, researchers were working 

with a uni-dimensional model of religion.  The introduction of the 

innovative two-dimensional model should allow a further discrimination of 

the complex relationships between personality factors and religiosity-

profiles (Peeters, 2003a). For example, nevertheless previous studies 

reported little or no significant correlations between Openness to Experience 

and religiosity, the PCBS, as measured by the Literal versus Symbolic 

dimension did report significant correlations corresponding with previous 

theories stating that the factor ought to be crucial in understanding the 

relation between personality and religiosity-profiles (Peeters, 2003a, Duriez, 

Soenens and Beyers, 2003; McCrae, 1996, 1999; Verhoeven and Hutsebaut, 

Inclusion of Transcendence 

Exclusion of Transcendence 

Literal 

Symbolic 

Orthodoxy

Second  

Naiveté 

External 

Critique 

Relativism

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1995, McCrae, Zimmerman, Costa and Bond, 1996; Saroglou, 2002; Duriez, 

Luyten, Snauwaert and Hutsebaut, 2002). 

 

 

1.3. PARANORMAL AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 

 

With respect to contemporary personality and development research, it is 

assumed that personality traits are not merely descriptions of static and 

enduring inter-individual differences.  Rather, they should be considered 

dynamic, organisational constructs, influencing how people organize their 

behaviour, process information and adapt to the social environment (Buss, 

1989; Caspi, 1998; McCrae & Costa, 1997; Roberts, Caspi and Moffitt, 

2001).  With this mind it seems reasonable to presume that there may be 

some underlying connection between religious beliefs and belief in 

paranormal phenomena – cf. the terms sheep and goat, used to denominate 

paranormal believers and non-believers, respectively, as introduced by 

Schmeidler (1945), who took them from a religious connotation in the Bible 

(Matthew, 25: 31-33).  The potential relationship between paranormal and 

religious beliefs has yet to be explored in any great detail and this lack of 

research has provided the impetus for this study.  The aim of this study is to 

investigate a potential correlation between paranormal beliefs (measured by 

the RPBS) and religious beliefs (measured by the PCBS) or vice versa, and 

also -if any- the personality factors that will predict or correlate with these 

beliefs.  This study will also represent the first use of the PCBS for 

measuring religiosity in the UK. 

 

Past research has shown the following correlations between paranormal and 

religious beliefs: firstly, Tobayck and Milford (1983) found traditional 

religious belief to correlate positively with belief in witchcraft and 

precognition, but negatively with belief in spiritualism and non-significantly 

with belief in psi, superstition, and extraordinary life forms.  Clarke (1991) 

found slightly different results with religiosity correlating positively with 

belief in psychic healing and negatively with UFO belief.  Finally, Hillstrom 

and Strachan (2000) reported negative correlations between religiosity and 

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beliefs in telepathy, precognition, PK, psychic healing, UFOs, reincarnation, 

and communication with the spirits.  As indicated earlier, the mixed results 

are largely due to the different measurements of paranormal belief used. 

Moreover, the measurement of religiosity was performed either by a simple 

measure of attendance or via the Traditional Religious Beliefs subscale on 

the RPBS.   

 

With respect to religious beliefs and personality factors, past research 

indicates that religiosity is associated with low Psychoticism (Agreeableness 

and Conscientiousness in the FFM), as shown in the meta-analysis by 

Saroglou (2002), who also reported that extraversion was weakly correlated.  

Using the PCBS as the instrument of measurement, significant correlations 

between Openness to Experience and religiosity (as measured by the literal 

vs. symbolic dimension) have been found (Duriez, Soenens and Beyers, 

2003) in accordance with previous theories stating that the factor ought to be 

crucial in understanding the relation between personality and religiosity 

(McCrae, 1996, 1999; McCrae, Zimmerman, Costa and Bond, 1996; 

Saroglou, 2002; Duriez, Luyten, Snauwaert and Hutsebaut, 2002, Peeters, 

2003a).   

 

The personality correlates most associated with paranormal beliefs have 

been Extraversion, which was associated with higher belief scores 

(Thalbourne, 1981; Thalbourne, 1980; Eysenck, 1967) and Neuroticism 

(Thalbourne, Dunbar and Delin, 1995). The specifically linked subscales 

were: psi belief, witchcraft, spiritualism, precognition and traditional 

religious beliefs.  Gender differences have also been reported with women 

tending to score higher than men on global paranormal belief (Clarke, 1991; 

Rice, 2003; Tobayck and Milford, 1983) but men having stronger beliefs in 

the existence of UFO’s and extraterrestrials (Clarke, 1991; Rice, 2003). 

 

Thus, this study seeks to confirm literature findings and to extend the 

boundaries of previous work by investigating any relationship between 

paranormal beliefs and religious beliefs.  In light of the aims of the study 

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