E-Book Overview
In this provocative and engaging book, Lee Kirkpatrick establishes a broad, comprehensive framework for approaching the psychology of religion from an evolutionary perspective. Within this framework, attachment theory provides a powerful lens through which to reconceptualize diverse aspects of religious belief and behavior. Rejecting the notion that humans possess religion-specific instincts or adaptations, Kirkpatrick argues that religion instead emerges from numerous psychological mechanisms and systems that evolved for other functions. This integrative work will spark discussion, debate, and future research among anyone interested in the psychology of religion, attachment theory, and evolutionary psychology, as well as religious studies. It will also serve as a text in advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses.
E-Book Content
Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion
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ATTACHMENT, EVOLUTION, and the
PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION Lee A. Kirkpatrick
THE GUILFORD PRESS New York
London
© 2005 The Guilford Press A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc. 72 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012 www.guilford.com All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America This book is printed on acid-free paper. Last digit is print number:
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kirkpatrick, Lee A., 1958– Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion / Lee A. Kirkpatrick. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59385-088-3 1. Psychology, Religious. 2. Attachment behavior. 3. Evolutionary psychology. I. Title. BL53.K56 2005 200’.1’9—dc22 2004013003
About the Author
Lee A. Kirkpatrick, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Psychology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. He has published numerous research articles and book chapters on topics related to adult attachment, the psychology of religion, and evolutionary psychology.
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Preface
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etween these covers lie, in effect, two different but related books. The first—at least in the sequence I have chosen here—presents an application of attachment theory to the psychology of religion. Since its introduction by John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and others in the 1960s and 1970s, attachment theory has become a dominant force in developmental psychology and other subdisciplines of social, personality, and clinical psychology. I argue that the theory provides a powerful framework for approaching the psychology of religion as well. In the first part of the book I show how a diversity of research findings from the psychology of religion can be organized and interpreted in attachment terms, and review the rapidly growing body of empirical research that has been motivated by, and tests hypotheses derived from, an attachment perspective. Although attachment theory is, in my opinion, considerably deeper and broader than most other psychological theories of religion, it by no means provides a comprehensive theory thereof. It seems particularly well suited for understanding certain aspects of certain religions, such as beliefs about, and perceived relationships with, the God of most varieties of Christianity, but there is much more to religion than this. The second half of the book thus presents a comprehensive theoretical framework for the psychology of religion, within which attachment