Damian Sendler: The theory of attachment looks at how people form and maintain close emotional ties with one another. In addition, it provides a framework for analyzing the central religious concept of one’s personal relationship with God. Normative attachment processes and individual differences in attachment are examined, as well as basic concepts in attachment theory and survey research. There is strong empirical evidence that many religious people see God as a source of resilience in their lives (e.g. a safe haven and secure base). In addition, we provide a summary of attachment-related religious development pathways. Finally, we review attachment-based research on religion and mental health and discuss future research directions.
Damian Jacob Sendler: Adherence to an attachment behavioral system (Bowlby [1] claims) motivates people to seek out supportive others (attachment figures) in times of need for protection and safety, according to Bowlby [1]. An attachment figure provides a safe haven (i.e. alleviation of distress and comfort) and a secure base from which to explore, learn, and thrive, according to Ainsworth [2]. A key component of attachment theory is the idea that people’s experiences with attachment figures and their subsequent storage of those memories in mental models of self and others (referred to as “internal working models,” or “IWMs”) lead to individual differences in how the attachment system functions. Positive IWMs of self-worth and other people’s goodwill are reinforced when children interact with mostly sensitive/responsive caregivers, leading to an expectation that support (a safe haven and a secure base) will be available when needed. Attachment insecurity can occur if attachment figures aren’t consistently responsive or sensitive. IWMs can indicate this.
Dr. Sendler: People’s distinct ways of forming and maintaining emotional connections to others have been studied extensively in the contexts of childhood and adulthood [5, 6]. To a certain extent, attachment-related avoidance reflects the degree to which a person distrusts the intentions of others and defensively strives to preserve their behavioral and emotional autonomy (attachment-system deactivation). Additionally, a person’s anxiousness related to attachment can be measured by the extent to which he or she fears that others will not be supportive (attachment-system hyperactivation). When it comes to attachment security, people who score low on both avoidance and anxiety are seen as more secure than those who score high on either (i.e. comfortable with intimacy and more secure interdependence with others). Years of research have largely confirmed that secure attachments help reduce anxiety and promote growth [6,7], and that sensitive/responsive caregiving can lead to the development of secure attachments.
According to [8••,9] the religion as attachment model, people’s religious thoughts, feelings, and actions can be explained. While many faith traditions view God as a source of love and comfort, Kirkpatrick and Shaver [10•] claimed that believers may perceive God as an especially powerful source of support based on their attachment bond with Him (i.e. a safe haven and secure base). Both doctrinal and experiential-affective representations of God’s role as an attachment figure [11•] When it comes to personal prayer, people who are religious report that they see God as a dialogical, relational partner [12].
There is a correlation between the development of attachment and a person’s devotion to God [8••]. Symbolic thought, mentalization, and other cognitive developments that decrease children’s reliance on physical contact with the caregiver and increase their ability to rely on internalized sources of security also allow them to represent noncorporeal entities like God as attachment figures.
[8••] There’s a lot of evidence that believers see God as their safe haven and secure base. Examples include petitionary prayer, raising one’s arms in a show of strength, and other rituals that explicitly ask for a safe haven [13]. Beck [14] also found that people who have a strong attachment to God are more likely to engage in theological and existential exploration, as well as be open to and accept differing viewpoints. Separation was used as a threat prime in two studies, and both adults and children reported an increased sense of spiritual intimacy as a result [15•,16•]. It was also found that believers’ cognitive access to God-related representations was enhanced by a threat prime (e.g. failure), and that a ‘God’ prime enhanced their cognitive access to positive, secure-base-related words and increased their positive affect in response to neutral stimuli. More evidence for the secure base function, Kupor et al. [18] found that those with a secure attachment to God were more likely to engage in exploratory risk-taking.
The correspondence hypothesis and the compensation hypothesis [9••,10•] have been proposed to explain how attachment-related experiences can influence a person’s religious development. There are two parts to the correspondence hypothesis. An IWM derived from an experience with another person can be extrapolated to include representations of God. Negative IWMs promote more negative depictions of God, while positive IWMs promote more positive depictions of God. A secure attachment orientation and sensitive/responsive caregiving help children learn social skills from their parental figures, which leads to greater religious affinity between parent and child (i.e. socialized correspondence). According to the compensation hypothesis, religious experiences can be used to make up for a lack of attachment security in intimate relationships.
Many studies [8••] have lent credence to these hypotheses. According to research [19,20,21], loving God images are positively linked to feelings of security and experiences of sensitive/responsive caregiving. Nkara et al. [24] found that estimates of sensitive/responsive caregiving on the AAI predicted more coherent, benevolent God representations on the RAI three years later using a Religious Attachment Interview (RAI) [22] modeled after the coded semi-structured Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) [23]. Confident attachment discourse predicted more benevolent depictions of God on the AAI.
A correlation between IWM and experimental studies has also been found. Following threat primes, participants with more secure attachment (as operationalized by recalled childhood attachment history [15•], child attachment representations [16•], and adult attachment style [17••]) showed higher levels of increased connection to God as well as greater access to God concepts. According to the AAI, children of mothers who had strong attachment representations reported a more personal relationship with God, further supporting the idea that there is an intergenerational connection [25•].
Damian Sendler
The correspondence hypothesis has also been supported by research into exploratory religious behavior. Higher attachment security was linked to more in-depth exploration of religious ideas in a study of adult Jewish converts and apostates [26]. Students who had a strong sense of belonging to a group of friends or family were more likely to express feelings of optimism and self-assurance in interviews about their religious exploration [27].
The intergenerational transmission of religion is also facilitated by secure attachment [20,28]. Individuals who report responsive caregiving have higher scores on religion variables than those who report less favorable caregiving at high levels of parental religiosity [10•,29]. Adults who are more attachment-secure tend to have religious changes that are in line with their parents’ levels of religiosity as children, according to Greenwald et al. [26]. attachment anxiety was linked to a greater number of abrupt shifts, a rejection of parents’ religion, and emotional compensation themes, whereas attachment avoidance was linked to a smaller number of exploratory and socialization themes. Last but not least, in a short-term prospective study of religious development in adolescence, secure attachment to parents predicted later reaffirmation of their parents’ faith [30].
Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: Conversion to a new religion and the reasons for this appears to be where the majority of evidence supporting the compensation hypothesis comes from. Many studies have found that insensitive caregiving experiences and attachment insecurities are linked to religious instability, especially sudden-intense religious conversions that take place in turbulent life contexts [31•]. Self-report measures of attachment in adulthood, such as the recalled attachment to parents [32] and the current romantic attachment [26], as well as the AAI [21•], have both shown a link between religious instability and a lack of security in romantic relationships. A wide range of cultural contexts (e.g. monotheistic faiths, countries) have been found to be linked to these findings. There are many ways in which religion can be used as a form of compensatory therapy for people who are experiencing attachment system hyperactivation. But no systematic study has examined the extent to which attachment-insecure individuals can gain a sense of security over time through a compensatory relationship with God. Religious compensation, according to Granqvist [2], may facilitate earned security in exceptional cases, but not by default (because negative IWMs usually linger).
As an attachment model, religion-mental health linkage is well-understood [8••]. As a result, factors such as stress and low social well-being tend to amplify the positive relationship between religion and mental health. When it comes to mental health, religion has a significant impact on aspects such as freedom from worry/fear and a secure base to explore from (e.g. personal competence). Mental health is most closely associated with religious practices that foster a trusting relationship with a loving deity [35]. There are a number of methodological flaws in the relevant studies, including the use of cross-sectional designs, self-report measures, and small convenience samples [36]. Nevertheless, we present here studies that stand out for the quality of their designs, samples, or findings.
Damian Jacob Sendler
Emotional problems and psychological distress have been found to be inversely related to a Christian’s secure attachment to God. Even though Muslim-Jewish relationships have been described as more behavioral/ritual than emotional/relational, similar associations have been found for both religions. Secure attachment to God has been found to predict mental health above and beyond intrinsic religiosity, social support, and interpersonal attachment styles in these studies, which is significant.
Research suggests that there is a two-way relationship between one’s sense of spiritual well-being and one’s ability to cope with stress. Depressive feelings, for example, predicted later increases in insecure attachment to God [41•] among Belgian nursing home residents. When it comes to religious/spiritual struggles, a study of American undergraduates found that those who had more negative experiences of God (cf. an insecure attachment) six months later had more negative views of God one year later [42]. An impressive longitudinal study (N = 531), however, found that a lack of security in one’s relationship with God was linked to deteriorating mental health over time [43], and this effect outweighed the importance of one’s relationship with others. Furthermore, a long-term increase in self-esteem and optimism is predicted by a person’s sense of security with God [44]. A six-month follow-up study found that a person’s level of spiritual security was associated with an increase in the number of transformative sacred moments (e.g., transcendence and interconnectedness) [45]. A prayer intervention, according to Monroe and Jankowski [46], facilitated corrective experiences in attachment to God, which in turn led to better mental health.
Damien Sendler: Research supporting the religion-as-attachment model has been extensive. As far as normative aspects of attachment to God are concerned, there are still a number of unanswered questions. How does the loss of God’s presence in one’s life manifest itself?). Over-reliance on measures of self-report in the study of religious attachment and mental health has also led to issues of semantic overlap and shared method variances that need to be addressed. Few studies have examined the hypotheses in clinical samples or sought to improve the construct validity of the measures for distinct populations. In order to address these shortcomings, attachment-religion research needs to expand its repertoire of studies. As an illustration of the need for neuroscientific studies, well-validated implicit measures are required to capture representations of God at a level less conscious than conscious thought [cf. [12]]. More long-term longitudinal studies are also needed to examine religious/spiritual development from childhood to adulthood from an attachment perspective and the intergenerational transmission of religion. New-age spirituality [21•] and the replacement of God by a welfare state in secular cultures [53] are just a few of the intriguing questions raised by the religion-as-attachment model that merit further exploration.
As a conclusion, the religion as attachment model [8•,54] provides an effective theoretical framework and research program for studying normative processes and individual differences in people’s religious beliefs and relationships with God. With improved methodological rigor, we hope this review will lead to new studies expanding and refining the model.
