The Civic Platform - A Political Journal of Ideas and Analysis

Title IQ, anthropometrics and religious involvement in a students’ sample

Author/s 1. Daniele Marzoli, Università di Chieti, Italy;
2. Victor Lugli, Università di Chieti, Italy;
3. Silvia Di Lanzo, Università di Chieti, Italy;
4. Patrizia Carluccio, Università di Chieti, Italy;
5. Alessia Mitaritonna, Università di Chieti, Italy;
6. Alfredo Brancucci, Università di Chieti, Italy;
7. Luca Tommasi, Università di Chieti, Italy;

Abstract Many studies underline the relationship of personality and psychological factors with religious behaviour and attitude. However, IQ was investigated in only a few studies. Moreover, the possible link between anthropometric features and religious behaviour have been neglected in such studies. We report a correlational study on the relationship between IQ and anthropometric measures on the one hand and a self-rating of participants’ involvement in their own religious community on the other hand. Our hypothesis is that certain psychological and physical traits related to reduced fitness, such as low IQ, low attractiveness, high body mass index, and, for females, non-optimal waist-to-hip ratio, might result in considerable coping difficulties, and that such difficulties could in turn motivate individuals to seek the social support offered by the religious community. Moreover, these coping difficulties could foster an external locus of control, a likely predictor of the tendency to seek such support. Data on about ninety undergraduate students were collected. Subjects’ photographs and anthropometric measurements were taken. Then, they were administered Raven’s Matrices (measuring IQ) and Rotter’s Test (measuring locus of control). Ultimately, they indicated the degree (if any) of the involvement in their own religious community. We expected that low IQ, low attractiveness (as judged by independent ratings of the participants’ photographs) , high body mass index, and high departure from optimal waist-to-hip ratio (in females) would predict subjects’ high religious involvement. In contemporary Western society, physical attractiveness, as well as being a reliable cue of fitness, is much valued a trait in interpersonal relations and social success. Thus, in our opinion, the relationship between religious involvement and low attractiveness might turn out to be quite strong. In sum, our aim was to test the existence of the hypothesized correlations and to examine their relative strength. The analyses carried out up to now (seventy female subjects) seem to indicate a negative correlation both a) between IQ and religious involvement and b) between physical attractiveness and religious involvement, and a positive correlation between body mass index and religious involvement.