The Psychography of Religion: Analyzing Ancient Texts Using Personality Insights to Reveal Psychographic Profiles of Authors
The language you use in the written and spoken word is the thumbprint of your mind. Recent advances in natural language processing and big data analysis have led to marketing innovation and social media-based listening that allows companies, organizations and governments to know what we’re thinking based on what we’re typing into our browsers every day. In a very real sense, they know who you are, psychographically, by what you type.
So, I’m working on this project where we’re using the OCEAN model (Oppenness-Concientiousness-Extraversion-Agreeableness-Neuroticism/Range) to analyze people’s writing with IBM’s Watson Personality Insights calculator. One day, I noticed something interesting: there’s no character limit on the system. This means you can dump unlimited text into the machine, and seconds later, the AI will pump out incredibly sophisticated psychological information about the author of those words.
Now, some of you may want to check out the twitter profile of your favorite social media influencers or pop in that email from your boss, but I wanted to ask a different question than apparently anyone else who is using the system. As far as I can tell, no one has yet asked the question (and published it publicly on the internet, I checked). So, I wandered into the realm of artificial intelligence and wondered aloud: what kind of person wrote the Vedas, the Bible, the Dhammapada, the Talmud, and the Quran?
Inspired by the divine, as they claim, these works were still written down by the hands of mortals.
So what is the actual difference, psychologically-speaking, between the world’s great religions, according to their own words? Do certain texts work better or worse for certain kinds of people, according to your personal psychology? Does it change over time, representing a collective evolution of our spiritual concepts? Or is there some universal grammar of religion, a syntax and semantics of divinity that exists but remains as of yet hidden? Could there be a God-code (or Goddess-code) hiding in the thumbprint of the words used as spirituality’s delivery mechanism on the planet?
This is where it gets interesting. It’s not going to be what you think. Personally, I was surprised at many of the results.
Here’s the process I used… First, look up the world’s top religions by population. According to Pew Research Center, that’s the following: Christianity (31.2%), Islam (24.1%), Hinduism (15.1%), Buddhism (6.9%), and Folk/Other (6.7%), which includes Shinto, Sikhism, Judaism, etc. The rest of the population is Unaffiliated (16%). Leave no mythology behind.
Then look up the primary religious texts of those religions, plus some other historically interesting ones. The list I used is the following, along with their respective affiliations, most of which I obtained from The Internet Archive’s posting of the Guttenberg Literary Archive. This book stash is amazing.
Selected Texts: The Four Vedas — Hinduism, The Four Books — Confucianism, The Talmud — Judaism, The Tibetan Book of the Dead — Buddhism, The Dhammapada — Buddhism, The Epic of Gilgamesh — Mesopotamian Mythology, The Upanishads — Hinduism/Buddhism, Sri Guru Granth Sahib — Sikhism, The Holy Quran — Islam, The Tanakh/Old Testament — Judaism/Christianity, The New Testament — Christianity, and The Kojiki — Shintoism.
Next, find online copies of those texts in txt format (linked above) so you can copy and paste it into the text box. I used English translations and removed as much of the introductions and commentary as possible prior to plugging it into the machine, so we could get the cleanest language from the original authors (though it’s obviously been handed down telephone style through centuries, so I use the word “clean” here with a grain of salt).
Then, head over to the Personality Insights demo of IBM’s Watson Artificial Intelligence, click on “Body of Text” in the menu midway down the page, then click on “Your own text.” This is where you can dump text with reckless abandon without a character count in the world to limit you. Lastly, hit the magic button, “Analyze,” and voila, you’re looking at a complete psychological profile of whoever wrote those words. It’s data-based magic.
Bonus: click on “View personality traits in sunburst visualization” in the bottom right hand corner and it produces a fun chart like this one below, which is based on my university thesis, some recent poetry and something I wrote while hiking the Shikoku Trail in Japan. It’s like the Camino of the East.
It also spits out this handy personality description like this: “You are shrewd and skeptical. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. And you are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both tradition and taking pleasure in life. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.” That sounds about correct. Seems legit.
So, after you’ve dumped in your ex’s old text messages, a transcript of your favorite TED Talk or whatever tickled your particular fancy, then it’s time to get to work. For my inquiry, after cleaning them up a bit (minimally), I punch in the previously discussed twelve books that I downloaded in txt format. The data produces the following sunburst visualizations, next to which I’ve included general observations and the analysis of each individual book.
Okay, so here’s the first psychographic insights from data-based comparative religious text analysis:
- Openness is the dominant characteristic of all of them, and it is maxed out at 100% on all, though the Adventurousness facet is consistently low across the board.
- Conscientiousness is above average for nearly all (50%+), with the exception of Dhammapada and Shinto. The Abrahamic texts (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) register as significantly higher on this dimension.
- Both Agreeableness and Extraversion are basement level low across the board, with the exception of high Agreeableness for the Biblical New Testament (73%), mid-range Agreeableness for the Tanakh (44%), and the high outlier for Extraversion is Shintoism at 20%, which is very low. Sympathy, Cooperation, and Altruism are consistently very high.
- Curiosity, Harmony, Structure, Stability, and Closeness are consistently the highest needs, while surprisingly Love, Liberty, Ideal, Practicality, Excitement, and Challenge are consistently the lowest needs.
- Openness to Change is the dominant value of every religious text, with the notable exception of the Tanakh and the Bible, which values Conservation. Self-transcendence is the secondary value of every religious text, though this lags far behind the respective primary values.
I bet at least some of those insights surprised you, as they did me. That religious texts were written by Conscientious people may not shock the religious set, but that unrestrained Openness is the universal dimension of religious expression may sound the alarm bells at religious institutions. That religions need Structure, Stability, and Harmony is somewhat obvious, but the lack of Love, Liberty, and Practicality on the needs list probably won’t make the Sunday morning newsletter. Counter-intuitively (though perhaps not for those who’ve personally had a mystical experience), Curiosity consistently registers as one of the highest needs of religion’s authors. Huh, who knew?
With this new view to the psychology of the authors of the world’s religions, we can remove their ancient words from the imprisonment of misinterpretation by modern-day followers. Too many have opportunistically parroted verses in order to channel their own worldview, but a comparative psychological analysis of their words could clearly show their deviation from universal spiritual values.
While this may not represent the psychology of the people who preach from the pulpit at your Church, Synagogue, Mosque, or Temple, the men who wrote these ancient texts can now be viewed in a more scientific and perhaps more generous light. It also naturally leads one to wonder what a religion written by women would sound like, of which we have far too few examples in the world throughout history.
Maybe the best way to embody these religious teachings is to walk in the psychographic footsteps of their authors. To be unflinchingly open, curious, sympathetic, altruistic, and conscientious looks like it would be a good start. Perhaps that was the real key to spirituality’s universal grammar all along.
TLDR: If you look at the natural language data of religions, psychologically, they prize Openness above all else. Surprise!
Ok, now that I got that little polemic off my chest, here’s the psychographic analysis of each text (txt file is source linked in the book title)…
“You are shrewd and skeptical. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. And you are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. Your choices are driven by a desire for organization. You are relatively unconcerned with both achieving success and taking pleasure in life. You make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.”
“You are shrewd, skeptical and tranquil. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both tradition and taking pleasure in life. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.”
“You are inner-directed, skeptical and can be perceived as insensitive. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. And you are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. You make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are shrewd, skeptical and tranquil. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. And you are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are inner-directed, tranquil and can be perceived as insensitive. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being. You are relatively unconcerned with taking pleasure in life: you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them.”
“You are shrewd, skeptical and can be perceived as indirect. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of organization. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are inner-directed, restrained and strict. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are emotionally aware: you are aware of your feelings and how to express them. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are inner-directed, restrained and strict. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are emotionally aware: you are aware of your feelings and how to express them. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are inner-directed, tranquil and rational. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are appreciative of art: you enjoy beauty and seek out creative experiences. And you are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. Your choices are driven by a desire for organization. You are relatively unconcerned with both achieving success and taking pleasure in life. You make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.”
“You are inner-directed, tranquil and can be perceived as insensitive. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. And you are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. Your choices are driven by a desire for discovery. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
“You are heartfelt, tranquil and restrained. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are consistent: you enjoy familiar routines and prefer not to deviate from them. And you are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being. You are relatively unconcerned with both achieving success and taking pleasure in life. You make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.”
“You are heartfelt, rational and restrained. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. And you are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. Your choices are driven by a desire for organization. You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and achieving success. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you make decisions with little regard for how they show off your talents.”
Just to make sure that the similarity of results wasn’t just a function of large datasets or some other factor, I compared the above results to a transcript of Brene Brown’s TED Talk on The Power of Vulnerability, USAF Colonel John Boyd’s Patterns of Conflict Presentation, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Good. All of them had starkly different results from the religious texts, except (hilariously) for the last one.
And for one last fun thing, I dropped all the Personality Insights blurbs from the various religious texts into a single wordcloud to see what would emerge:
