MEASURING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPIRITUALITY AND PERSONALITY

Current literature lacks an organized framework for understanding the personological significance of spiritual constructs. This paper is one such attempt where spirituality is studied within the context of psychological functioning to measure the relationship between spirituality and personality. Personality was defined using- Five Factor Model of personality and indigenous Guna theory rooted in Indian tradition. Data was collected from 179 students using three different standardised questionnaires to measure the relationship between spirituality, gunas and personality traits of students. Also the predictive power ability of gunas and five factor model of personality was examined in determining the total variance in spirituality. The results suggest that spirituality and personality are related in a multidimensional manner. Both the undesirable guna (Tamas guna) and undesirable trait (Neuroticism) have negative relationship with spirituality and with other desirable personality traits (Extraversion, Openness to experience, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness) and desirable gunas (Sattwa guna). . However, regression was significant but personality could explain only a small proportion of variation in spirituality pointing towards the fact that there may be a high probability that spirituality is a factor of personality as has been suggested by various studies.