Examining the Relationship of Neuroticism and the Three Dimensions of Religious/Spiritual Doubt Through the Mediating Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty

Research on religious/spiritual (r/s) struggles, such as doubt, has increased over the past two decades and is important because of links between these struggles and negative holistic outcomes. The problem is there are Christian adults with r/s doubts that lead to negative outcomes, and there is a lack of research that examines how the personality trait factor of neuroticism and the dispositional factor of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) affect r/s doubt. The aim of this study was to examine the possible mediating influence of IU upon neuroticism and r/s doubt (including the three dimensions of r/s doubt: factual, emotional, and volitional). A sample of N = 229 adult Christians in the United States completed an anonymous cross-sectional survey on Prolific.com. The main analyses included four simple mediation models (without and with covariates age, sex, and religious belief salience). Only one of the mediation analyses showed an indirect mediation effect, the model with r/s emotional doubt as the outcome variable. This was true with and without the covariates. The mediation model with r/s emotional doubt stood out because of a slightly stronger (and only statistically significant) relationship between IU and the outcome variable compared to the other three outcome variable models, but the key difference among the models is that r/s emotional doubt is more distinctively connected with negative emotionality and IU. Recommendations for future research include prescreening for current or recent r/s doubters, including only Protestant or evangelical Christians, designing a longitudinal study with multiple survey time points, and placing the doubt survey items ahead of all other instrument items (especially religiousness items).