Attachment to God, Psychological Need Satisfaction, and Psychological Well-Being Among Christians

Human attachment relationships are considered to be foundational to psychological well-being (Fonagy, 1999; Warren, Huston, Egeland, & Sroufe, 1997) and, by extension, attachment to God is often considered foundational to psychological well-being amongst Christian believers (Kirkpatrick, 1999; Miner, 2009). However, studies of psychological need satisfaction by different attachment figures (La Guardia, Ryan, Couchman, & Deci, 2000) suggest that experiences in which basic psychological needs are satisfied are conducive to more secure attachment relationships, and thus, to enhanced psychological well-being. This paper tests two contrasting models of attachment to God, need satisfaction, and well-being: the Attachment Security Primacy Model which holds that attachment security facilitates experiences of psychological need satisfaction and thence increased well-being; and the Need Satisfaction Primacy Model which holds that experiences of psychological need satisfaction facilitate attachment security and thence increased well-being. Using self-report data from 225 Australian Christian participants, Structural Equation Modeling indicated that the Need Satisfaction Primacy Model fit the data better than competing models. Implications for augmenting theories of attachment to God and providing contexts in which people can experience God as meeting basic needs are discussed.