Attachment to God Across Religions: Fathers and Mothers Matter Differently in Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism

This study examined how attachment to parents influences attachment to God across Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Grounded in attachment theory and extending prior work on parental correspondence, participants from the United States and India completed measures of attachment to mothers, fathers, and God. Consistent with the correspondence hypothesis, parental attachment patterns mirrored attachment to God. For Christian participants, both avoidance and anxiety toward fathers predicted attachment to God, reflecting Christianity’s paternal conception of the divine. For Muslim participants, both avoidance and anxiety toward mothers predicted attachment to God, consistent with the maternal role in transmitting Islamic faith. Among Hindu participants, avoidance toward mothers predicted avoidance toward God, and anxiety toward both parents predicted anxiety toward God, reflecting the balance of masculine and feminine divine representations in Hinduism. These findings underscore cultural differences in spiritual attachment and highlight the importance of parental influences in understanding cross-religious variations in faith development.