Religious Attachment and the Sense of Life Purpose among Emerging Adults

Abstract

Abstract:The salubrious association between religious involvement and well-being is evident among the general population of religious individuals. In particular, the sense of attachment to a deity is linked to promoting healthy behavior and positive well-being. The link between religious attachment and well-being is particularly salient for emerging adults during a life stage where they are developing their own sense of self while also renegotiating religious commitments. The current study uses OLS regression and a lagged dependent variable model to analyze how perceived closeness to God is linked to the sense of life purpose among a diverse, national sample of emerging adults. We find that relative to those perceiving closeness to God, those who reported feeling neutral or did not believe in God experienced lower levels of life purpose. Respondents who reported feeling distant from God had the lowest scores on the Life Purpose Index. The findings are examined within the framework of religion and attachment theory literature. The study encourages researchers to consider attachment to a deity as an important link in explaining well-being outcomes, especially among religious individuals.

Religious Struggle and Life Satisfaction Among Adult Christians: Self-esteem as a Mediator

“…In contrast, when these relations are generally inconsistent, such worlds turn out to be uncertain and unreliable. Therefore, the perception of God as a confident, secure, and caring attachment figure may be positively associated with different aspects of psychological well-being (Bradshaw et al 2010;Culver and Lundquist Denton 2017). The foundation of hypothesis H1 lies also in the empirical research literature.…”

How Consistency in Closeness to God Predicts Psychological Resources and Life Satisfaction: Findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion

“…Finally, it predicts low levels of stress and loneliness (Hill & Pargament, 2003). A protective component of attachment to God is closeness (Culver & Denton, 2017).…”

Emotional Attachment to Sacred Spaces: A Contribution to a Neglected Area in Psychology of Religion

“…In anxious-avoidant attachment style, when the attachment figure is emotionally unavailable and less concerned with the needs of the infant, the infant would not care the separation at all and would tend to ignore the attachment figure. In anxious-ambivalent style, when the attachment figure sometimes expresses responsive and near to the infant and sometimes not, the infant would constantly be angry and become insensitive and reluctant to their environment (Culver & Denton, 2017;Cobb, 2017). In this context, the person whom the child establishes a close relationship and feels safe with when he needs it is called the attachment figure.…”

“…In this sense, researchers in the field of psychology of religion believed that divinerelated components could also be viewed as attachment figures; hence, they attempted to apply attachment theory to religious beliefs and behaviours (Kirkpatrick, 1992(Kirkpatrick, , 2012Counted & Zock, 2019). When the literature pertaining to such inquiry is reviewed, it is seen that the majority of the studies on religion and attachment have been restricted to only examining perceived relationships with God (Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1992), spiritual and mystical experiences, attachment to God (Culver & Denton, 2017), and prayer (Byrd & Boe, 2001;Ellison, Bradshaw, Flannelly, & Galek, 2014). Only recently, the topics related to people-environment research has attracted growing interest among researchers.…”