Here is a summary of the Big 5 Personality Traits:
Conscientiousness is a fundamental personality trait—one of the Big Five—that reflects the tendency to be responsible, organized, hard-working, goal-directed, and to adhere to norms and rules.
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Openness (also referred to as openness to experience) emphasizes imagination and insight the most out of all five personality traits. People who are high in openness tend to have a broad range of interests. They are curious about the world and other people and are eager to learn new things and enjoy new experiences.
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Agreeableness is a personality trait that can be described as cooperative, polite, kind, and friendly. People high in agreeableness are more trusting, affectionate, altruistic, and generally displaying more prosocial behaviors than others.
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Extraversion. Extraversion (or extroversion) is a personality trait characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness. People high in extraversion are outgoing and tend to gain energy in social situations.
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Neuroticism, one of the Big 5 personality traits, is typically defined as a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings. All personality traits, including neuroticism, exist on a spectrum—some people are just much more neurotic than others.
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This video explains the Big Five Personality traits in regards to religiosity. In the video it says that based on a metanalysis there is some association between religiousness and Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. People with these personality features tend to be religious and hold the view of a benevolent God. Those who tend to be dogmatic and Fundamentalist in their religious orientation tend to be low on Openness. Thus, the data seems to show that people with personalities who are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness will tend to be religious but not dogmatic nor fundamentalist in their religiousness.
This is also confirmed in this video Is There An Atheist Personality Type? (Psychology of Atheism Part 2)": wherein the personality types that tend to be atheist are compared with those who tend to be spiritual or religious. This explains why the personality type of many or most Mormons tends to be high in conscientiousness and agreeableness.
According to the scientific paper Within-person associations between Big Five traits and religiosity (2023) by Mohsen Joshanloo, the abstract states:
Cross-sectional studies suggest that of the Big Five personality traits, agreeableness and conscientiousness correlate most strongly with religiosity. ... A higher than typical level of openness was associated with a lower than typical level of religiosity after about a decade
A Canadian study found the same thing. In Religion and the five factor model of personality: An exploratory investigation using a Canadian university sample, authors Andrew Taylor, Douglas A MacDonald found that "Agreeableness and Conscientiousness domains are significantly related to and affected by religion ..."
A 2016 article How does personality vary across US cities? by JonahS states:
Seven of the 10 cities with highest average agreeableness are in Utah. This corresponds to Utah residents being almost 60% Mormon: as a group, Mormons have exceptionally high average agreeableness.
The article goes on to say, "New Yorkers really are unusually disagreeable." Not surprising there are hardly any Mormons in New York.
So it is clear that religion either produces or attracts those who are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness, while those who are high in openness may not feel at home in more fundamentalist religions. This explains why I personally struggled with maintaining my LDS faith in my 20s and 30s during the McConkie era (which was more "fundamentalistic" in my view), because I am higher in openness. I was curious and open to exploring nontraditional ideas and philosophies while other LDS members most often were not during the 1990s to early 2005. I left the Church around 2004. A year later in 2005 there began an explosion of openness in LDS scholarship, from Rough Stone Rolling to the theological explorations of Terryl Givens. Yet I am also high in agreeableness and conscientiousness which meant I never felt at home in secular culture and always felt more at home among LDS members who like me tend to be high in agreeableness and conscientiousness. I am also high in the Big 5 trait Neuroticism, being prone to anxiety and in my 20s while LDS I developed scrupulosity and this contributed to my eventual disaffection from the LDS Church around 2004. I now realize that this is subjective on my part, and that others who are low in neuroticism on the Big 5 will not experience scrupulosity in the LDS Church like I did (or at least not to the same degree that I did). I became aware of this after watching Barriers to Belief: Mental Distress and Disaffection from the Church - 2018 FairMormon Conference. The LDS Church Leaders have also begun to speak out against ideas and policies in LDS culture that often facilitate scrupulosity and feelings of inadequacy. For example, on August 2021 at a Stake Leadership meeting at the Herriman Utah Rose Canyon Stake, Area Seventy Richard N Holzapfel spoke out against past ideas on body shaming and went on to admit that the LDS Church has taught hurtful things about repentance leading to toxic perfectionism. So if the LDS continues to reform such harmful cultural ideas that are not actually in the LDS Scriptures (which do not promote scrupulosity and perfectionism), then LDS culture will become more and more only a force for good with mostly agreeable and conscientious people.
I found more evidence that Mormons are more agreeable and conscientious in the article America’s mood map: Utah found as most agreeable place in the country, author Haley Beckstrand writes in 2013:
Utah was found in a recent study to be the number-one most agreeable state and the least neurotic place in the country, confirming that Mormons may be as nice as we think we are.
The 13-year study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, gathered 1.6 million data response surveys from 48 states and concluded that lines could be drawn in the U.S. based on the personality of a region.
Large samples of people from across the states took the “Big Five” personality test based on extroversion, agreeability, neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness. ...
... Bob Ridge, a social psychology professor at BYU, said these personality traits help give key insights into individual and community behavior.
“Agreeableness is a tendency to be compassionate and cooperative,” Ridge said, “while neuroticism measures emotional stability and impulse control.”
Commenting on the theory of the study instead of the methodology, Ridge said Utahns can look to their past to help explain these results.
“People that live in Utah tend to be cooperative rather than antagonistic,” Ridge said. “I think you can trace that to the original pioneer ethic and is also consistent with the values of Christianity.”
Ridge said people in Utah are emotionally stable, and there are many environmental factors that offer insights into why.
“One could theorize that comes from the value system and Christian teachings,” Ridge said. “Those Christian values are passed down from generation to generation.”
... Sam A. Hardy, an assistant professor in the psychology department, said ... something about Utah’s culture is unique from the rest of the country.
“We’re a more highly religious state,” Hardy said. “So the high agreeableness could be a product of high religiosity.”
Hardy also said Utah is fairly homogeneous across race, religion and politics, and those factors could help account for the results of the study.
“If agreeableness is getting along, then it’s probably easier to get along when we are all the same,” Hardy said.
This is more evidence for Mormons being in my view a quasi-ethnicity, as Jews are also "fairly homogeneous across race, religion and politics." Yet it is not just Utah, Mormons in other states are more agreeable and conscientious. So it is more than just about geography, but more about culture and ethos in my view.
From this data it is clear to me that Mormonism selects for more agreeable and conscientious people. In other words, those with traits on the Big 5 that makes them happier and healthier, tend to gravitate toward Mormonism. I believe this because of plural marriage in the 1800s, where certain personality traits were selected for in the birthing of the Mormon People.
I did my own experiment in California, and asked several random people if Mormons are nicer than other groups. I usually asked the question along the lines of which group is the nicest and friendliest, Catholics, Protestants, or Mormons? Or I got more specific and said Jehovah's Witnesses, Lutherans, Jews, Baptists, etc. Everyone I asked always said the Mormons.
Several studies show that those who are high in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion tend to be happier with greater well-being on average. Going on an LDS mission led me, as an Introvert (low on Extraversion), to develop an Extroverted persona and when I did that (being social and outgoing a few days a week at LDS socials) I did feel happier than when I tend to enter my isolated introverted state sometimes for long periods.
If you read Jacob Hanson's article below on how the LDS Church is good you will see several sources of data showing that Mormons are happier and healthier than most other groups. What I realized reading the following articles is that Mormons in general (there are exceptions of course) are happier and healthier than other groups in part because of the Big 5 traits. These articles provide evidence that Mormons are one of the healthiest and happiest groups:
Is the Church Good? - Fruits of the Gospel (2021) by Jacob Hansen
So we have clear evidence in the data above that religiousness leads to more agreeableness and conscientiousness and increased well-being and happiest among most religious people. In contrast, a lack of faith or belief or higher meaning in life often leads to nihilism and mental illnesses, as covered in this video and essay: Why the Lack of Religion Breeds Mental Illness by Academy of Ideas.
Then if you watch this video on the positive affects of religion, the author looks at the scientific data on religion and mental health and at 9 minutes he talks about the effects of social capital or being part of a social group has on your mental health. Listening to this I realized that every time I have had anxiety it's gotten worse when I've been in isolation. In fact, it was my going to LDS Church at the age of 17 after having panic attacks, that those panic attacks reduced after being part of the LDS community. And it was leaving the LDS Church and being more isolated as an agnostic in my 20s and 30s when my anxiety became its worst. At 11 minutes in the video he makes a really good point about the reduction of ego when being part of a religious community. Those who are more willing to give up their ego or being self-absorbed, and being agreeable and conscientious and conforming to social norms are going to be more religious and happier; because they're not constantly self-centered but more other-centered which means you're going to generate positive feedback loops of mutual reciprocation; and also by thinking less of oneself you're going to be less depressed. He goes on to talk about how prayer and other religious exercises act as a form of mindfulness meditation which increases well-being and happiness. At 6 minutes he does say that there are some negative side effects that can occur in the religious life like feeling unhealthy guilt or shame or being subject to abuses of power. However, with healthy boundaries and more LDS leaders like 70 Richard N Holzapfel speaking out against past ideas on body shaming and toxic perfectionism, it appears that for most people religion, and Mormonism in particular, can be a net positive in their life (especially if they are high in agreeableness and conscientiousness).
