Investigation of religious/Islamic orientation and traits of student's personality on the basis of big five-factors of personality (NEO)

Considering the importance of religion orientation in mental health and its stability up to adulthood, we performed this study to investigate religion/Islamic orientation and traits of student's personality on the basis of big five- factors of personality (NEO). This was a descriptive – analytical study. 272 subjects (men=128, women=144) between 18 and 28 years of age were selected by cluster sampling method and were assessed by means of two questionnaires: 1) Short – form of NEO- Personality Inventory and 2) Islamic-Religious Orientation questionnaire. SPSS software was used for data analysis. The results of this study showed that all the traits of five factors of personality except for neuroticism had correlation with religious orientation (P<0.01). Factor of openness to experience predicted 0.11 of religion orientation in the students. According to the results of this study, there was a significant difference in religion orientation between males and females (t= -2/21). In general in our study, the personality traits had correlation with religion orientation and among them openness to experience had a more important role.