Attachment theory and religion: Childhood attachments, religious belief, and
Conversion (Kirkpatrick and Shaver, 1990)
Paper review
Following Ainsworth’s 1969
work on the strange situation – a method for detecting the attachment type of
an infant to their mother - as a generally accepted psychological theory of
attachment, Kirkpatrick and Shaver (1990) examined the relationship between
such attachments to later religious belief and conversion. In noting the empirical limitations of
earlier work in psychodynamics, Kirkpatrick and Shaver believe that attachment
theory, as an empirical theory, provides a theoretical framework for
approaching questions concerning childhood and later religiosity. This paper will critically review Kirkpatrick
and Shaver’s study, beginning with a brief overview of attachment theory before
evaluating their main findings.
Infants are seen as having an
inbuilt tendency to seek a secure attachment to their mother in times of need
and stress. The infant therefore expects
the mother to respond to such worries and fears[1],
if the mother fails to respond, or is inconsistent with their response, an
insecure attachment may therefore develop.
Kirkpatrick and Shaver take this view, following the work of Bowlby
(1969), Ainsworth (1969) and many other empirical studies (Hazan and Shaver,
1987; Weiss, 1973, 1982) that such early attachments are ‘active’ and
‘influential’ throughout the lifespan.
To test for the attachment type, Ainsworth developed the ‘strange
situation’, an environment designed to apply a small amount of stress onto the child
thus detecting the relationship between their cried for security and their
mother’s response. Three attachment
types are observed: Secure – the mother responds to the child’s needs; Insecure
Avoidant – the mother tends to reject the infant’s pleas; and Insecure
Ambivalent – the mother is inconsistent with their response.
Kirkpatrick and Shaver
acknowledges that infants develop ‘through their experienced expectations and
beliefs about the availability and reliability of the attachment figure as a
haven and secure base’ (p. 317). They
therefore believe that religious belief can be conceptualized in the form of
attachment theory (p. 318), particularly in the Christian tradition where they
believe that God corresponds closely to the idea of a secure, or ideal
attachment figure. The idea is very
reminiscent of Freud’s early conception of God as the exalted father figure,
the only exception is that attachment theory places priority on the mother
rather than the father. Therefore,
Kirkpatrick and Shaver think there are similarities between the Christian God
as a ‘protective parent’ (Kaufman, 1981); that is, a God that is often ‘by ones
side’ (p. 319) and attachment theory – Indeed, they later go on to claim that
God serves as a substitute attachment figure.
It is noticeable, then, that Kirkpatrick and Shaver is defining
religious belief specifically in the Christian tradition, in which God, or even
Jesus, is the corner stone to such a belief.
Whether they are right in conceptualizing religion in this sense is a
matter of debate, however as it is known ‘religiousness’ and indeed ‘religion’
per se does not require a ‘God’ or ‘creator’ as a prerequisite for such
belief. Richard Dawkins, for example,
opens the first chapter of his book, ‘The God Delusion’, titled ‘A deeply
religious non believer’, here he takes religiousness not in a Godly sense or
traditional sense, but instead in an obsessive sense in which he believes
science overcomes such religious belief.
On the other hand, Buddhists do not claim there necessarily being a God
in any shape or form (deistically or theistically), the primary goal, instead,
is rather to seek detachment, including detachment from the ‘self’, rather than
attachment. So religiousness in this
sense could well be conceptualized along the lines of having a mystical, or
enlightening experience. I do not deny
the logic behind Kirkpatrick and Shaver’s concept of early attachment
relationships to the Christian concept of God as an ideal attachment figure,
but the question thus remains as to whether the specificity of Christianity in
their report, is a valid study for religious belief in general as the title of
the paper implies. And so, perhaps it is
rather dubious as to whether attachment theory can be conceptualized within
other definitions of religiosity similarly to the ones stated above.
Despite the issue of defining
religiousness, Kirkpatrick and Shaver conducted an empirical investigation –
via questionnaire – to firstly examine the relationship between maternal
religiousness to each attachment type, and secondly the relation ship between
such attachments and the degree of their mothers religiosity (low or
high). The findings firstly indicated
that the relationship between maternal religiosity and the respondents’ depends on the nature of the attachment
type. In other words, those who
categorized themselves as securely attached to their religious mothers were
also more likely to be religious. The
implication it seems is that the nature of the attachment type leads the infant
on to identifying with their mothers personal belief. However, the most interesting finding is
perhaps the strong significant correlations between an avoidant attachment type
to the belief in the moral or ethical teachings of Christianity (Ethical type)
and a Personal God (r = .73 and .52 respectively). When the data was dichotomized into low and
high means of maternal religiosity (table 2, p. 325), it is clear that those
who had avoidant mothers tended to be more religious in comparison to those in
the other two groups. But again, the
most interesting finding was that those who experienced avoidant attachments to
relatively non religious mothers in
believed more in Jesus Christ as lord and savior (Born Again), believing in a
Personal God, and finally having a relationship with God. Interestingly, however, the mean value for
belief in a Personal God increased by 38.9 whereas only the mean belief of
having a relationship with God increased by only 4.6. It seems peculiar because since belief in a
Personal God, i.e. one that is there for you at times of need, or ‘by one’s
side’, should be linked to the perception of having a relationship with
God. Therefore I would have predicted
that the mean values for both variables be relatively similar, but the data goes
contrary to this assumption. In this
case, therefore, there is no link, or very little, between having a
relationship with God and believing in a Personal God.
Despite these interesting
findings it is important to note that in the majority of religious
measurements, weak correlations between attachment type and religiosity were
observed. In taking this into account
one should not dismiss the possibility that other factors throughout the
lifespan can play a role in engaging in religious behaviour or belief; for
example, books we read, people we meet, stories we hear e.t.c. In fact a range of studies focusing on
maternal behaviour and later attachment types in general have only found a
moderate relationship at best (De Wolff & Van Ijzendoorn, 1997), this
suggests that we should be more cautious in our interpretation between
attachment types and religion variables.
Indeed, the larger correlations indicate that there is something going
on within the nature of avoidant attachments and later religiosity in general,
but in comparison to those securely attached the results are not clear-cut.
There is a further danger
with the notion of attributing God as an ideal attachment figure as a
substitute for those who experienced a rejecting mother. Firstly, and most importantly Psychologists
in this field are treating the idea of God as a psychological phenomenon
attributed to the detrimental effects of insecure attachment. Whether this view can be incorporated into
the actual ontology of Christianity remains to be clear – Freud would perhaps
disagree on this point by seeing Christianity as a development from the early
notion of God the exalted father figure – however it is extremely unlikely that
the participants in this study see God in the same light that Kirkpatrick and
Shaver conceptualize Him. For them, and
in assuming their beliefs are relatively strong, God is real independent of
whether they had a secure or insecure attachment to their mother. Therefore the notion of an ideal attachment
figure is not something they would see as the main reason for their belief, nor
would they see it as something that replaces their mother. Secondly, there lies the assumption that
insecure attachments provide a possible ontology for such later religious
belief. Not only can this lead to
unnecessary and provocative stigma; seeing religious belief as a form of mental
illness or a detrimental side effect of attachment disorder - Dawkins takes the
view that religion is a delusion for example – but it defeats the purpose of
what religion actually means to those who believe and experience such
things. Indeed, if we go by contemporary
thinking and say that early attachments provide an ontology, or theoretical
framework for beliefs and behaviours in all walks of life, then it shouldn’t be
so surprising that we find a connection to later religious beliefs as
well. But in taking this view we are
loosing touch with perhaps the most important aspect of development – the
ability to wage our free will and choice[2]
- while running the risk of blaming our mothers for our later outcomes.
In the last section of the
paper (pp. 326-328), Kirkpatrick and Shaver examined the relationship between
maternal attachment and sudden religious
conversion. The results suggest that
those who classified themselves as insecure avoidant were four times more likely to experience a sudden religious conversion
in either adolescents or adulthood (44.5%) in comparison to only 9.4% (secure),
and 8.2% (anxious/ambivalent).
Kirkpatrick and Shaver list three types of events as reasons for their
conversion: Problems with relationships;
problems with parents, and sever emotional distress. At first these results are quite interesting
because it suggests a link between relationship problems in general (with
people), to later relationships with God.
The implication here is that those who experienced avoidant attachments
had more of an urge to convert in contrast to those that didn’t.
But what exactly is a sudden
religious conversion, and why is it so detrimental to espousing the belief that
avoidant attachment types play a key role?
The implication of the word sudden is such as something that is abrupt
and unexpected, something that comes about with no prior warning, nor even
comes across as a thought or inclination that this ‘something’ will take
place. Is it correct to say that 44.4%
in this study converted without any such inclination? That they blindly, as it were, converted out
of the blue? Kirkpatrick and Shaver
forced a yes or no answer to this particular question, but how can we be
certain of the validity of suddenness i.e. that the measurement ‘suddenness’ is
measuring what Kirkpatrick and Shaver actually wanted it to measure? It is difficult to actually know whether the
participant did in fact experience a sudden religious conversion as defined above,
because if conversion took place at a young age then bias, poor memory recall,
or misinterpretation could account for their answering yes, where as if it
occurred later in life, during adulthood, then certain life events (conscious
or otherwise) between infancy and adulthood could have contributed to their
decision. On the other hand, this result
doesn’t rule out the possibility that those who didn’t experience a sudden
conversion didn’t experience a conversion at all. It is possible that those who answered no on
the questionnaire experienced a slow, or gradual religious conversion that
occurred over time. However, without
measuring any form of gradual conversion the relationship between avoidant
attachment and later conversion might have well been different.
To conclude there certainly
appears to be something going on between avoidant attachment types and later
religiosity, however and as I have hoped to have shown, the relationship is
somewhat weak in most cases and not specifically clear in comparison to secure
attachments. Indeed, there are also
difficulties with the notion of measuring religion as pointed out earlier, as
it is far from clear as to whether we can regard the layman interpretation of
Christianity as a sufficient test for religious belief, since there are many
other ways of conceptualizing religion i.e. in ways that do not espouse the
need for a God. The results which
comprise religious conversion are interesting and perhaps could be improved by
measuring gradual conversion as well as sudden conversion. Indeed, the bottom line with this study is
that attachment is far from causing religious belief, while God serving as a
substitute attachment figure remains, although interesting, dubious if we take
a personal approach to such religious experience.
© 2011 Roberto Nacci All Rights Reserved
References
Ainsworth, Mary D. Salter
(1969). In Kirkpatrick, L, A., Shaver, P, R. (1990). Attachment Theory and Religion: Attachment
theory and religion: Childhood
attachments, religious belief, and Conversion.
Journal for the scientific Study
of Religion, 29(3): 315:334
Bowlby, John (1969). In
Kirkpatrick, L, A., Shaver, P, R. (1990).
Attachment Theory and Religion: Attachment theory and religion: Childhood attachments, religious belief, and
Conversion. Journal for the scientific Study of Religion, 29(3): 315:334
Hazan, Cindy and Shaver,
Phillip (1987). In Kirkpatrick, L, A.,
Shaver, P, R. (1990). Attachment Theory
and Religion: Attachment theory and religion:
Childhood attachments, religious belief, and Conversion. Journal
for the scientific Study of Religion, 29(3): 315:334
Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, p.9
De Wolff, M.S. and Van
Ijzendoorn, M.H. (1997) In Alberry, I.P., Chandler, C., Field, A., Jones, Dai.,
Messer, D., Moore, Simon., Sterling, Chris.
Complete Psychology (2nd
Edition), Oxon: Hodder Education, p. 289
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