Attachment to God: The Attachment to God Inventory, Tests of Working Model Correspondence, and an Exploration of Faith Group Differences

Abstract

Recent theoretical and empirical work by Lee Kirkpatrick and others has suggested that relationship with God can be fruitfully described as an attachment bond. However, this literature has been limited by the lack of a sound theoretical and psychometric scale that operationalizes the attachment to God construct. Toward that end, the paper presents data from three samples, two college and one community sample, describing the psychometric properties of the Attachment to God Inventory (AGI) as well as providing tests of the correspondence and compensation hypotheses. In general, the AGI subscales of Avoidance of Intimacy and Anxiety about Abandonment display good factor structure, internal consistency, and construct validity. Comparisons of the AGI with adulthood attachment measures appear to support, albeit weakly, a correspondence between working models of romantic others and God.