The Rrelationship between the Big Five Personality Traits and Happiness with the Mediation Role of Religious Orientation among Students

The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the big five personality traits and happiness with religious orientation as a mediator. The participants consisted of 301 Shiraz University students (110 males and 191 females) selected by applying a multistage random sampling method. Participants completed three questionnaires: NEO-FFI or the short personality inventory of Costa and Mc Crae (1992); the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale (IEROS, Allport & Ross, 1967); and the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) (Argyle, 1989). These instruments showed appropriate reliability and validity. Multiple regression and path analysis were the major statistical analyses run in the study. Results of multiple regressions revealed that extraversion, and intrinsic religious orientations were the positive predictors of happiness, in contrast to Neuroticism which predicted happiness negatively. Also, results showed that religion orientation played the mediation role between these relationships. The findings indicated that this model is a proper model to explain the mechanism of the effects of personality traits on happiness. Based on the findings, to increase the level of happiness in neurotic people it would seem useful to intervene by increasing the intrinsic religious orientation.