Big Five Personality Factor Associations With Individuals' Experience in Their Relationship With God

Religious clients bring unique needs to the clinical setting, yet the therapeutic use of their attachment to God remains largely unexplored. Although attachment to God may compensate for an insecure child-parent attachment style, the usefulness of personality in supporting this compensation has not been established. Guided by attachment to God theory and Bowlby's theory of attachment, this study addressed the current gap in the literature by determining if personality may impact individual attachment to God and if personality impacts an individual's ability to experience compensation in relationship to God. A non-experimental correlational design was utilized to determine if the hypothesized causal pathways for compensation could be documented by analyzing associations linking personality characteristics with individuals' perceived attachment to God and parents. A convenience sample of 113 undergraduate students in a private, Christian university participated in this study. Personality was measured by the Big Five Inventory (BFI); child-parent attachment was measured by the Experience in Close Relationship Structures Questionnaire, Revised Scale (ECR-RS); and perceived attachment to God was measured by the Attachment to God Inventory (AGI). The binary logistical regression was inconclusive because the response distribution was attenuated. Statistically significant negative correlations were observed linking BFI agreeableness with AGI anxiety and BFI conscientiousness with ECRS overall anxiety, and a significant positive correlation was observed between BFI openness and AGI avoidance. These results can be applied in therapeutic practices by utilizing spirituality as a therapeutic tool to improve mental health and long term relationships.