Religious Conversion and Personality Change Raymond F. Paloutzian Westmont College James T. Richardson University of Nevada, Reno Lewis R. Rambo San Francisco Theological Seminary ABSTRACT The question of whether religious conversion causes changes in someone’s personality is examined in light of two bodies of literature—the research on personality change and the research on conversion. When the theory and research on personality change is applied to the question of whether conversion causes such change, the answer depends on what level of personality is of concern. Research on the relation between religious conversion and a variety of behavioral, attitudinal, emotional, and lifestyle variables is consistent with this conclusion. Although conversion seems to have minimal effect on elemental functions such as the Big Five traits or temperaments, it can result in profound, life transforming changes in mid-level functions such as goals, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors, and in the more self-defining personality Journal of Personality 67:6, December 1999. Copyright © 1999 by Blackwell Publishers, 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK. Preparation of this article was supported in part by a Westmont College Faculty Devel- opment Grant to the senior author. The authors wish to thank Robert Emmons, Lee Kirkpatrick, Michael McCullough, and Kenneth Pargament for critical comments on the manuscript. Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to Raymond F. Paloutzian, Psychology Department, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA 93108-1099 (email: paloutz@westmont.edu), or to James T. Richardson, Sociology and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557 (email: jtr@unr.edu), or to Lewis R. Rambo, San Francisco Theological Seminary, 2 Kensington Road, San Anselmo CA 94960 (email: LewisRambo@aol.com).