In this summary of my recent book (Kirkpatrick, 2004), I outline a general theoretical approach for the psychology of religion and develop one component of it in detail. First I review arguments and research demonstrating the utility of attachment theory for understanding many aspects of religious belief and behavior, particularly within modern Christianity. I then introduce evolutionary psychology as a general paradigm for psychology and the social sciences, arguing that religion is not an adaptation in the evolutionary sense but rather a byproduct of numerous psychological systems that evolved for other adaptive purposes, of which the attachment system is just one example. I conclude by summarizing numerous advantages of this framework over other extant approaches to the psychology of religion.

Adult attachment styles in 354 heterosexual couples in serious dating relationships were examined. Principal findings included the following: (a) male and female attachment styles were nonrandomly paired, for example, no anxious-anxious or avoidant-avoidant pairs were found; (b) male and female styles related to concurrent relationship ratings of both partners in different but theoretically meaningful ways; (c) male and female styles contributed significantly to longitudinal prediction of relationship stability and status, even when prior duration and commitment to the relationship were statistically controlled; (d) specifically, relationships of avoidant men and of anxious women were surprisingly stable over 3 years, particularly in light of the relatively poor ratings of these relationships by both partners at Time 1. Discussion focuses on the need to integrate gender role considerations and relationship dynamics and processes into theorizing on adult attachment.

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ࡗ A Half Century of Mate Preferences: The Cultural Evolution of ValuesThe qualities people believe are important in selecting a marriage partner afford one domain for assessing human values. We examined the cultural evolution of these values over more than half a century. Building on existing data on mate preferences collected in 1939 (N ϭ 628), 1956 (N ϭ 120), 1967 (N ϭ 566), and 1977 (N ϭ 316), we collected data using the same instrument in 1984/ 1985 (N ϭ 1,496) and in 1996 (N ϭ 607) at geographically diverse locations. Several changes in values were documented across the 57-year span. Both sexes increased the importance they attach to physical attractiveness in a mate. Both sexes, but especially men, increased the importance they attach to mates with good financial prospects. Domestic skills in a partner plummeted in importance for men. Mutual attraction and love

The different adaptive problems faced by men and women over evolutionary history led evolutionary psychologists to hypothesize and discover sex differences in jealousy as a function of infidelity type. An alternative hypothesis proposes that beliefs about the conditional probabilities of sexual and emotional infidelity account for these sex differences. Four studies tested these hypotheses. Study 1 tested the hypotheses in an American sample (N = 1,122) by rendering the types of infidelity mutually exclusive. Study 2 tested the hypotheses in an American sample (N = 234) by asking participants to identify which aspect of infidelity was more upsetting when both forms occurred, and by using regression to identify the unique contributions of sex and beliefs. Study 3 replicated Study 2 in a Korean sample ( N = 190). Study 4 replicated Study 2 in a Japanese sample (N = 316). Across the studies, the evolutionary hypothesis, but not the belief hypothesis, accounted for sex differences in jealousy when the types of infidelity are rendered mutually exclusive; sex differences in which aspect of infidelity is more upsetting when both occur; significant variance attributable to sex, after controlling for beliefs; sex-differentiated patterns of beliefs; and the cross-cultural prevalence of all these sex differences.

A longitudinal study of 177 adults examined the stability of adult attachment styles and of romantic relationships over a 4‐year period. Findings included the following: (a) attachment styles were highly stable over time; (b) Time 1 attachment style was a significant predictor of Time 2 relationship status, but (c) this effect was mediated by concurrent attachment style at Time 2; (d) secure respondents were less likely than insecure respondents to report one or more breakups during the 4‐year interval, but (e) paradoxically, ambivalent respondents were just as likely as secure respondents to be in a relationship with the same partner they had identified 4 years earlier; and (f) attachment stability was moderated to some extent by the experience of breakup or initiation of new relationships during the interim. Respondents' ability to recall their previous attachment style was also examined. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed, particularly with respect to the conceptualization of attachment styles as traits versus reflections of current relationship status.

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.Since the publication of Bowlby's (1969Bowlby's ( /1982 first volume more than three decades ago, attachment theory has been enormously influential in the study of social development in children as well as adults (Shaver and Cassidy 1999). More recently, Kirkpatrick (1992Kirkpatrick ( , 1999 proposed that the theory provides a powerful framework for understanding many aspects of religious belief, particularly with respect to perceived relationships with God. In support of this idea, numerous studies have shown that religious beliefs and behaviors are related cross-sectionally to individual differences in adult attachment experience (Kirkpatrick 1998; Kirkpatrick and Shaver 1992), and that religious change is empirically predicted longitudinally from retrospective reports of childhood attachment experience (Granqvist and Hagekull 1999;Kirkpatrick and Shaver 1990) and previous adult attachment experience (Kirkpatrick 1997(Kirkpatrick , 1999.A central focus of the attachment-theoretical approach to religion concerns perceived attachments to God. Research has shown that such individual differences correlate inversely with loneliness, depression, and similar constructs (Kirkpatrick and Shaver 1990;Kirkpatrick, Shillito, and Kellas 1999). However, these findings suffer from several important limitations. First, individual differences in attachment to God have heretofore been measured using a crude categorical self-report measure with unknown reliability. Second, these findings are open to alternative interpretations in terms of potentially confounding factors, particularly (1) social desirability response sets and (2) other dimensions of religiosity that might be correlated with the attachment to God measure. The present research was designed to address these issues by developing a multidimensional measure of...

Three experiments (N = 1,331) demonstrated that research findings on suspiciousness about coincidences (Miller, Turnbull, & McFarland, 1989) can be accounted for in terms of subjective probability, as predicted by cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) but in contrast with the norm theory (NT) account offered by Miller et al. (1989). Ss participated in a hypothetical (Experiments 1 and 2) or real (Experiment 3) lottery game in which they chose between 2 bowls offering equivalent probabilities of winning or losing but differing with respect to absolute numbers (e.g., 1 in 10 vs. 10 in 100). Responses across 4 conditions (2 probability levels x 2 outcome types) and across the 3 experiments supported predictions derived from CEST but not those derived from NT. Results are discussed in terms of 2 conceptual systems, rational and experiential, that operate by different rules of inference.