In light of religious and worldview differences between psychologists and the general population of the United States (i.e., psychologists are generally less religious and endorse more non-traditional religious views), the researcher sought to determine whether such differences are evident at the level of undergraduate education. Using data from questionnaires administered to 3,680 undergraduate students in their junior year, the researcher compared psychology and all non-psychology majors in terms of scientism, irreligiousness, normative religiousness, humanism, spiritual struggle, and religious embeddedness. MANCOVA and ANCOVA statistical analyses suggested that psychology majors were higher on humanism and spiritual struggle than were students in all other majors; the two groups did not differ with respect to the other four variables. Psychology majors were also compared to more specific subsets of majors, including students of the natural sciences, humanities, theology/religion, business, education, engineering, and health professions. In this case, education and theology/religion majors scored lower on scientism and higher on normative religiousness and religious embeddedness than did psychology majors. On spiritual struggle, psychology majors scored higher than students of business, education, and engineering. Psychology majors were also higher on humanism than all majors except the humanities and theology/religion.
These results indicate that the differences between undergraduate psychology majors and their peers are subtle, with psychology majors tending slightly toward humanism and spiritual struggle. Two forces may further lead psychologists-in-training down their divergent religious path. First, those with greater humanism and spiritual struggle may be selectively attracted to graduate education and a career in psychology. Second, additional educational and professional socialization may cultivate humanism and spiritual struggle, contributing to the abandonment of normative religiousness and general religious involvement in favor of either humanistic religiousness or scientism and irreligiousness.