Two Dimensions of Attachment to God and Their Relation to Affect, Religiosity, and Personality Constructs

TLDR

The study develops a dimensional attachment to God scale and examines whether its dimensions predict affect and personality while controlling for social desirability and other religiosity factors. Questionnaire data from 374 university students and community adults were used to construct and test the scale. Two attachment dimensions—avoidance and anxiety—were identified, with anxious attachment predicting higher neuroticism, negative affect, and lower positive affect, and avoidant attachment predicting lower religious symbolic immortality and agreeableness, indicating these associations persist after controlling for confounds.

Abstract

In this study we sought to address several limitations of previous research on attachment theory and religion by (1) developing a dimensional attachment to God scale, and (2) demonstrating that dimensions of attachment to God are predictive of measures of affect and personality after controlling for social desirability and other related dimensions of religiosity. Questionnaire measures of these constructs were completed by a sample of university students and community adults (total n = 374). Consistent with prior research on adult romantic attachment, two dimensions of attachment to God were identified: avoidance and anxiety . After statistically controlling for social desirability, intrinsic religiousness, doctrinal orthodoxy, and loving God image, anxious attachment to God remained a significant predictor of neuroticism , negative affect , and (inversely) positive affect ; avoidant attachment to God remained a significant inverse predictor of religious symbolic immortality and agreeableness . These findings are evidence that correlations between attachment to God and measures of personality and affect are not merely byproducts of confounding effects of socially desirable responding or other dimensions of religiosity.