A personality understanding of costs and benefits of being a believer or atheist

From the initial research question of my PhD (Do believers and non-believers differ in their sense of humor?) till the research question of our most recently published paper (Is Western ‘Islamophobia’ common prejudice or value defense?), I progressively developed with my students and collaborators several research programs aiming to deepen our understanding, as personality psychologists, of individual differences regarding religion (including fundamentalism and spirituality) and atheism. This research encompasses cognitive, emotional, and moral characteristics and prosocial and antisocial outcomes of the above, as well as cross-cultural/cross-religious considerations. In this talk, I will argue that a personality psychology perspective helps us to understand the costs and benefits of being a believer or an atheist, what in turn may explain why this individual variation has been constantly present across time and societies