Mysticism Matters: Distinguishing between Intrinsic Religiosity,Extrinsic Religiosity,and Spirituality Using Higher-order Factors of Personality and Mysticism

Abstract

The current study was designed to examine factors of personality and mystical experience that might predict the extent to which participants were intrinsically religious, extrinsically religious, and/or spiritual, while controlling for gender and race. Data from 777 introductory psychology students were used. Hypotheses were partially supported with three hierarchical multiple regression analyses. The personality factors traditionalism and transformation were found to be modest differentiating predictors of the three criterion variables. However, the three factors of mysticism, introvertive, extrovertive, and religious interpretation mysticism, were found to predict substantial differentiating variance between intrinsic religiosity and spirituality.