Ratings of Personality Attractiveness and Social Effectiveness by Religious Affiliation

Curtis Dunkel

Published: 2026/06/01

Abstract

Personality traits covary to form a general factor of personality or GFP. Religious groups differ on the GFP with Jews scoring high and the nonreligious scoring low. Because the GFP is thought to represent a “good” personality and/or social effectiveness, it was hypothesized that differences in personality ratings between religious groups would also emerge. Although somewhat inconsistent, the results of two studies supported the hypothesized pattern. In general, Jews were found to have higher attractive personality and social effectiveness ratings while the nonreligious scored significantly lower. Future research should employ several raters to increase the reliability of the ratings and examine Jewish intragroup differences

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