Attachment to God and Parents: Testing the Correspondence vs. Compensation Hypotheses

The relationship between early caregiver experiences and attachment to God was explored in the current study. Using the Attachment to God Inventory (AGI) developed by Beck and McDonald, the relationship between parent-child attachment and attachment to God was explored among a college population. In addition, parental spirituality and religious emphases in the home were investigated. Comparisons of the AGI with parent-child attachment measures support a correspondence between working models of parents and God. Respondents that reported coming from homes that were emotionally cold or unspiritual exhibited higher levels of avoidance of intimacy in their relationship to God, a trend consistent with a Dismissing attachment style. Overprotective, rigid, or authoritarian homes were associated with higher levels of both avoidance of intimacy and anxiety over lovability in relationship to God, a trend characterized by the Fearful attachment style. Attachment theory is widely accepted as a broad encompassing model of psychosocial and emotional development. Recent work (Granqvist, 1998; Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1990; TenElshof & Furrow, 2000) has suggested that attachment theory may be an appropriate framework for a believer's relationship with a God figure. The question of whether one's attachment to God resembles other attachment relationships has generated a wealth of research but has recently gained new impetus with the introduction of a direct measure of attachment to God, the Attachment to God Inventory (Beck & McDonald, 2004). Prior to this time, other religiosity measures or single-item/b rief measures have been used to assess attachment to God. Now that the measure is available, attachment to God questions can be addressed more directly. In the current study, the association between parent-child attachment and attachment to God was explored.