The Impact of Child-Parent Attachment and Attachment to God On Adult Romantic Partner Attachment

This study attempted to explore whether attachment to God influences the nature of the relationship between one's attachment to primary caregiver and one's attachment to romantic partner. It was hypothesized, that for individuals with higher levels of attachment avoidance and/or attachment anxiety to the primary caregiver, who then developed a relationship to God with lower levels of attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety (compensatory attachment) they will also have romantic relationships that are lower in attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. The Experience in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures was used to gather pertinent data. There were several statistically significant differences in regards to race, education, religious identification and marital status with attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety to the three target relationships (primary caregiver, romantic partner and God). However, statistically significant results were not found to support the main hypothesis.