Unsettling the guardian : quest religiosity and psychological type among Anglican churchgoers

Both psychological type and religious orientation have provided tools for understanding the make-up of church congregations and for examining the extent to which different styles of church services may appeal to distinct congregational profiles; however the relationship between the two instruments is relatively little studied to date. Some 390 individuals who attended a Christmas Carol service in a Church of England cathedral completed both the Francis Psychological Type Scales and the New Indices of Religious Orientation. Higher Quest scores were found among Intuitive types than Sensing types, replicating an earlier finding by Ross and Francis (2010). Unlike the earlier study the present survey also identified significantly higher Quest scores for Perceiving rather than Judging types. A further comparison of the combined SJ type with the remainder of the sample showed the former to have lower Quest scores. The findings are discussed and suggestions made for further research