Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion: A Response on Lee Kirkpatrick

Abstract

Lee Kirkpatrick's approach to the psychology of religion involves two main theoretical positions, attachment theory and evolutionary psychology. It is argued that the former is more fruitful than the latter because it stays closer to empirical data and suggests further hypotheses for investigation. An evolutionary approach to the psychology of religion suffers from the same problem as most evolutionary psychology of not being readily testable; also some common assumptions about the evolution of religion may be less compelling than is often supposed.