Hmm, your mention of Peterson and the Big Five in this context spurred a thought: William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience makes a distinction between "healthy minded" religious folks and "sick minded" religious folks, using the terms in developing clinical sense of the time - "healthy minded" were folks who had a temperament that most would see as desirable (optimistic, happy, etc), whereas "sick minded" folks had the kinds of things that psychotherapy was supposed to be able to help with (depression, ennui, meaninglessness). It seems that both could produce strong religious feeling: healthy-minded folks basically are like "wow, life is so good, there's got to be a God who made it this way!" and sick-minded folks are like "wow, life is so terrible, the only thing that makes it tolerable is solace from God." New Thought and its ilk was very healthy-minded (James talks about them specifically), whereas Tolstoy was more on the sick-minded side of things.
Anyhow, what I wonder is whether applying the Big Five would give a more granular view on healthy vs sick minded. At first glance, it sounds like the big difference is neuroticism and extraversion, but I wonder if the other three play a role.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2023-11-29 01:56 am (UTC)Anyhow, what I wonder is whether applying the Big Five would give a more granular view on healthy vs sick minded. At first glance, it sounds like the big difference is neuroticism and extraversion, but I wonder if the other three play a role.