ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that attachment theory, which has become highly influential within developmental, social, personality, and clinical psychology, is such a theory and offers exciting prospects for the psychology of religion. It reviews a sampling of research findings and show that conceptualizing religion as an attachment process may provide a fruitful theoretical model for approaching religious belief and behavior from a psychological perspective. The secure attachment relationship is characterized by confident exploration of the environment under normal circumstances and by proximity seeking and comfort seeking in the presence of threat. Individual differences in infant-mother attachment have received considerable attention in developmental psychology. The chapter also argues that the availability and responsiveness of an attachment figure, who serves alternately as a haven and as a secure base and from whom separation would cause considerable distress, is considered a fundamental dynamic underlying Christianity and many other theistic religions.
