FACING A DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL: HOW ATTACHMENT TO GOD MEDIATES BETWEEN PARENTAL ATTACHMENT AND RELIGIOUS STRUGGLES

Abstract

Given the link between religious struggles and adverse health outcomes, researchers have begun to identify its predictors, with attachment to God (ATG) being one of them. Prior research also suggests that one’s style of ATG mirrors that of their attachment to parents, indicating that parental attachment is an important source of how one is attached to God. This study combined both lines of investigation to propose that ATG mediates the link between parental attachment and religious struggles. The study also differentiated between father and mother attachments to explore potential differences in results between the two. A total of 249 undergraduates who believed in God and were religiously affiliated completed an online survey that assessed their ATG, parental attachment, and religious struggles. Mediation analyses revealed that anxious ATG mediates between anxious mother attachment and religious struggles, but not between anxious father attachment and religious struggles. Moreover, although no mediation effect was found for secure and avoidant parental attachment, secure father attachment was a positive predictor of secure ATG. These findings highlight the crucial role that anxious mother attachment play in predicting religious struggles through anxious ATG. Additionally, both father and mother attachments are said to be differentially important for people’s ATG.