Maladaptive Personality Traits, Religiosity and Spirituality as Predictors of Epistemically Unfounded Beliefs

Abstract

The present research focuses on the question whether spirituality, religiosity and maladaptive personality traits, as measured by the PID-5 (antagonism, psychoticism, disinhibition, negative affectivity, detachment), predict epistemologically unfounded beliefs (EUB). The sample included 829 participants recruited through social networks (58% women, mean age 29,98 years). EUB was measured by the Scale of Epistemologically Unfounded Beliefs (Halama, 2019b), which measures three types of EUB: conspiracy, pseudoscientific, and paranormal beliefs. Pathological personality traits were measured by the Short Personality Questionnaire for DSM-5 (PID5-BF, Kruger et al, 2013), spirituality by the Questionnaire of Daily Spirituality (Underwood, 2011) and religiosity by The Religiosity Questionnaire (Storch et al., 2004). The results showed that especially psychoticism is a positive predictor of all EUBs. Spirituality and religiosity predicted only paranormal beliefs. Results confirmed maladaptive personality traits, religiosity, and spirituality can play a significant role in EUB and should be taken into account when considering sources of EUB at the individual level.