Are Latter-day Saints Prone To Certain Personality Characteristics?
Harvard/Baylor Global Flourishing Survey Pt4
This is part 4 of a 4 part series on the Harvard/Baylor Global Flourishing Study and what it tells us about Latter-day Saints. Thanks for following along for the series! Here are links to the previous 3 articles in case you missed them:
Read part 1 Finally, A Closer Look At Members Outside the US
Read part 2 Are Latter-day Saints More Likely To “Flourish”?
Read part 3 How Are Global LDS Doing On Mental Health?
The Global Flourishing Study has a bunch of questions about personality traits. Of course this is all self-reported data, so people are generally more likely to rate theirselves as “dependable” and less likely to rate themselves as “uncreative.” But surely, there’s something that could be learned from how Latter-day Saints (and other religious folks) see their own personalities.
Chart
I don’t want to read into this too deeply, but let me point out a few fun facts according to our dataset of global Latter-day Saints:
Global LDS are more likely to rank themselves as “Reserved, Quiet” and “Calm, Stable” and less likely to rank themselves as “Extroverted, Enthusiastic.”
Interestingly, they are more likely to rate themselves as “critical, quarrelsome” than the global average.
Latter-day Saints see themselves as more open and complex, more dependable and self disciplined, and less likely to be easily upset or anxious.
These ones I highlighted are all statistically significant comparing simple averages, but I did not look at this data using demographic controls.
There probably is some irony somewhere as the religion most known for talking with strangers through missionary work are more likely to be introverts 😂
Is there anything I missed in this data and what we can learn from Latter-day Saints? I’m sure there is plenty to look at with other religions as well.
Let me know what you think below.
See you next week!
Another thing reading back through looking at the chart again...
Latter-day Saints rate themselves very middle of the road on Sympathetic and Warm, but I wonder how other religions would rate LDS. I suspect that other religions may rate LDS a bit higher on that one. Haha now I just want to see the graph(s) of all religions rating each other's religions on these topics. (I know there's that one pew chart of everyone disliking LDS, but maybe on dimensions like these there would be more nuance 🤷♂️)
I feel a lot of us are reluctantly forced out of our introvert bubble through callings and ministering assignments. It helps us grow and see the world through other perspectives which is probably why we also see ourselves as open and complex. I am not an extrovert, or a natural public speaker; neither is my husband. Both of us have served in leadership positions which have asked of us that we become comfortable with unknown people and competent in speaking in front of groups of adults. In some way it’s a refinement process, a way to get outside of ourselves.