Helping Protestant Undergraduates in the United States Manage Their Religious Doubt: The Predictive Role of Facet and Domain Traits in the Five Factor Model

In a recent Barna poll, 60% of practicing Christians indicated rarely or never doubting religious beliefs. This puzzling statistic evokes questions. How did this approach to uncertainty benefit the respondents? Were suppression and concealment in their coping strategy? Would an alternative management approach, one derived from a compendium of personality traits in a four-stage doubting process, be of assistance? In a review of religion-personality literature, several gaps were uncovered. Gender effects with these constructs were often unattended; authors utilizing the Five-Factor Model (FFM) frequently didn’t include facet traits; positive and negative sides of religious doubt were usually not discussed together; multiple stages in the doubting process were seldom considered; and researchers rarely employed a multidimensional model of quest religious orientation (QRO) as a measure of doubt phenomena. Consequently, a sample of Protestant Christian undergraduates (n = 335) was recruited and administered the FFM using facet and domain traits along with unidimensional and multidimensional instruments of QRO. Findings from hierarchical regression analyses of constructs representing four stages in the doubting process revealed 11 facet and the five domain traits emerging as predictors. Implications and applications from the predictive associations forming a doubt management strategy were discussed.