Journal of Psychology and Theology

Attachment and religion research in the past 15years has focused on the question of continu-ities and discontinuities between attachment patterns in close human relationships and patterns of attachment with respect to religious/spiritual beliefs and experiences. The conceptual question at issue, proposed by Kirkpatrick and Shaver (1990), is whether people’s religious beliefs and experiences correspond to their internal working models of human attachment figures, or, in contrast, whether religious beliefs and experiences compensate, or sub-stitute for the lack of secure attachment relationships with primary caregivers. The purpose of the present study is to offer initial empirical support for an alter-native theory to explain the differences between cor-respondence and compensation at the level of implic-it knowledge. COMPENSATION AND CORRESPONDENCE: EMPIRICAL FINDINGS On the surface, it appears that the empirical liter-ature to date presents a rather inconsistent picture. On the one hand, a number of studies in the areas of attachment and object relations functioning suggest correspondence. For example, secure attachment in current relationships has been associated with per-ceptions of God as more loving, less distant and con-trolling (Brokaw & Edwards, 1994; Hall, Brokaw, Edwards, & Pike, 1998), and of one’s relationship with God as more stable and emotionally close (Hall & Edwards, 2002). In addition, retrospective reports of secure attachment history have been associated with higher levels of orthodox Christian belief