Literature Review
bishokmagar
AttachmentTheory.pdf
The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 22:231–241, 2012
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1050-8619 print/1532-7582 online
DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2012.679556
THEORY
Attachment Theory and the Evolutionary Psychology of Religion
Lee A. Kirkpatrick Department of Psychology
College of William & Mary
More than 40 years after its inception, Bowlby’s theory of infant-mother attachment remains widely
accepted and highly influential across many areas and applications of psychology, including the
psychology of religion. As compelling as the theory is for explaining phenomena within its natural
domain, however, its explanatory scope is inherently limited: There are many aspects of religion that
it cannot, and should not be expected to, explain. From the perspective of contemporary evolutionary
psychology—with which Bowlby’s original theory has much in common—the attachment system
is one among many functionally domain-specific cognitive adaptations that populate our species’
evolved psychological architecture. Evolutionary psychology offers a valuable perspective within
which the attachment system can be seen properly as just one (important) piece of a much larger
puzzle—of psychology in general and religion in particular—as well as a powerful and generative
paradigm for identifying and fitting together the many other pieces that will be required if we are
to progress toward a comprehensive psychology of religion.
It has been a little more than two decades since I first proposed in print that attachment
theory had the potential to offer a powerful theoretical perspective for the psychology of
religion (Kirkpatrick, 1992; Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1990). The theory has since generated a
considerable body of empirical research which, as illustrated by this special issue of The
International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, continues to grow in new and creative
directions (for reviews, see Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2008, in press). I of course find this very
gratifying, but it is John Bowlby, not I, who deserves the lion’s share of the credit: My own
contribution has been mainly one of recognizing a good idea when I saw it. Attachment theory
Correspondence should be sent to Lee A. Kirkpatrick, Department of Psychology, College of William and Mary,
P. O. Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
231
232 KIRKPATRICK
itself was already more than two decades old at the time, and to this day it continues not
only to be widely accepted but also to generate new research across many subdisciplines of
psychology. The Handbook of Attachment (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008), now in its second edition,
contains 40 chapters and weighs in at more than 1,000 pages. There are few theories in the
history of psychology that can boast such staying power.
There are probably many reasons behind the success and longevity of attachment theory, but
I suggest that one very important one is that Bowlby basically got it right. I believe that there
“really is” an attachment system—in the same way that there “really is,” say, a visual system
or an eating-regulation system—that reliably develops in all humans (and many other species,
though with differences in detail). I believe that this system can be understood as a suite
of information-processing algorithms or psychological mechanisms that operate essentially as
Bowlby described: for example, by attending to environmental information about the proximity
of the primary caregiver (attachment figure [AF]) and cues of potential danger, combining
this information with stored knowledge of previous experience with the AF, and motivating
attachment behaviors when the AF’s proximity falls below a desired set point. I believe that
the recipe for building this cognitive/emotional system is coded in the human genome, because
it evolved via natural selection as a solution to the adaptive problem of protecting helpless
infants from predators and other dangers faced in ancestral environments by maintaining
proximity between them and their primary caregivers. I believe, in turn, that parents (especially
mothers) are motivated to respond in particular ways to attachment behaviors by an equally
real parental caregiving system—another evolved cognitive adaptation designed by natural
selection in humans and many other species. I believe that the attachment system reliably
produces certain patterns of individual differences, at least in part as a function of systematic
differences in environmental inputs that cause the system’s set point to be calibrated differently
in different individuals, depending on such factors as the chronic presence of danger cues and
the perceived reliability of the AF in responding to attachment behaviors. In the first part of
this article I explain why I believe these things to be true, in a way that I do not believe the
claims of most other psychological theories to be true—in other words, why I think attachment
theory was (and continues to be) such a “good idea.”
However, attachment theory is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive theory of the psychology
of religion: It offers an explanation for, and a theoretical basis for developing new hypotheses
about, only a limited range of religious phenomena. As powerful as it may be within this
domain, attachment theory is unlikely to provide many useful insights about such important
questions as the influence of religion on prejudice and warfare, the prevalence and nature of
polytheistic beliefs systems (which likely dominated human thought until relatively recently),
or the nature and origins of such widespread religious practices as sacrifices, elaborate rituals,
and shamanism (to name just a few). The attachment system, I argue, is just one among many
cognitive-emotional systems that populate our species’ evolved psychological architecture,
so a comprehensive theory of psychology—and by extension, a comprehensive psychology
of religion—must necessarily include many, many other cognitive adaptations beyond the
attachment system. The crucial question, then, is: Where should we look for equally “good
ideas” about these other systems and their role in shaping religious belief and behavior? In
the second part of this article, I suggest that the answer to this question is contemporary
evolutionary psychology, for the very same reasons that make attachment theory such a “good
idea.” I then conclude by briefly illustrating some ways in which an evolutionary-psychological
ATTACHMENT AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 233
approach provides a powerful and novel perspective on some of the most long-standing
problems and issues in the psychology of religion.
WHY ATTACHMENT THEORY IS A ‘‘GOOD IDEA’’
The primary reason that I believe Bowlby’s theory to be basically “true,” in a way that I do
not believe most other psychological theories to be “true,” is this: In the first volume of his
Attachment trilogy, Bowlby (1969) developed and explained in detail not only what he thought
the attachment system might be and how he thought it might work, but why it is this way and
not some other way. His justification for hypothesizing the existence of an attachment system
and the principles by which it operates were not based, like so many other theories, merely
on generalizations from extant findings or intuitions conjured in an armchair. Instead, he went
outside the psychology and psychoanalysis of his day to draw upon such disparate fields as
control systems theory, ethology, and evolutionary theory, the combination of which led him
to an entirely new way of thinking about the nature and functional organization of human (and
other species’) psychology. In this sense Bowlby’s genius was not so much in the product of
his theorizing but the process by which he went about it—a way of thinking that was otherwise
to remain largely dormant within psychology until it reemerged nearly two decades later in
the form of evolutionary psychology (e.g., Cosmides & Tooby, 1987; Symons, 1987; Tooby &
Cosmides, 1990, 1992).
The extent to which Bowlby’s (1969) approach to human behavior anticipated contemporary
evolutionary psychology (EP) is rather remarkable. Specifically, the manner in which he
constructed his theory, piece by piece, illustrates several of the central defining features of
contemporary EP, including the following:
1. Bowlby began by acknowledging the utility of thinking about human behavior in the
context of animal behavior in general. He drew heavily upon ethology and comparative
psychology to place human behavior in this larger context. For example, he saw imprint-
ing behavior in precocial birds (Lorenz, 1957) as functionally analogous to human attach-
ment, and saw the importance of Harlow’s (1958) classic research on infant monkeys’
behavior toward artificial “mothers” in the laboratory. He recognized that explanations
of human behavior should be consistent with that of other animals’ behavior while
recognizing important differences across species.
2. Bowlby appreciated that evolved behavior patterns in all species, as a product of natural
selection, are organized around adaptive problems faced by that species throughout its
evolutionary history. In the case of attachment, the adaptive problem to be solved is
that of increasing the likelihood of survival of helpless infants from predators and other
dangers, by maintaining proximity between the attached infant and its AF. He noted that
the evolved imprinting system in goslings, per Lorenz, was designed by natural selection
to solve an adaptive problem similar to that solved by the attachment system in primates
but that the details of the evolved solution necessarily differ across species in light of
other ecological and biological constraints (e.g., that goslings, unlike human infants, are
locomotive from birth).
234 KIRKPATRICK
3. Following from the previous point, Bowlby recognized that psychological adaptations
such as the attachment system are (in modern parlance) functionally domain specific:
that is, different behavior programs are required to solve different kinds of adaptive
problems. Bowlby recognized the significance of Harlow’s (1935) work, for example, in
demonstrating that the adaptive problems associated with obtaining food and avoiding
predation are functionally distinct and thus require different cognitive programs to solve
them. Moreover, he carefully distinguished the attachment system from other related
(but functionally distinct) adaptations, such as the infant’s exploration system (which is
enabled by secure attachment and the absence of danger cues) and the parental caregiving
system (in the absence of which attachment behaviors would be useless).
4. Drawing upon ethology, Bowlby noted that although some evolved behavior systems
are designed in a very simple way, such as fixed-action patterns in which a particular
stimulus automatically activates a stereotyped response (e.g., a male Siamese fighting
fish attacking a conspecific or its own mirror image), other behavior-regulation systems
are more complex. Drawing upon control systems theory, the foundation of early work in
artificial intelligence and computer programming, he envisioned the attachment system
as a dynamic information-processing system with specific inputs, feedback loops, and
outputs. Much as a thermostat monitors the temperature of the room, compares it with
a preselected set point, and activates the heating or cooling system accordingly, the
attachment systems monitors the proximity of the AF relative to a desired set point and
activates attachment behaviors in response to a discrepancy. This manner of conceptual-
izing motivation differed radically from the extant psychology and psychoanalysis of his
day.
5. In thinking about the problem of how natural selection fashions psychological and phys-
ical systems as solutions to adaptive problems, Bowlby acknowledged that adaptations
were designed by natural selection as solutions to problems of the past: that is, adaptive
problems as they existed during the time frame within which the adaptation evolved. In
fact, Bowlby’s most notable legacy in evolutionary biology is the term he introduced to
reflect this concept: the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA). The fact that
newly hatched goslings will (seemingly foolishly) follow around a human ethologist—
who had arranged to make himself the first large moving object they saw upon hatching—
illustrates how a system that reliably produced adaptive problems in the EEA can produce
potentially maladaptive responses in novel environments (in this case, an environment
that includes clever ethologists). This potential for mismatches between ancestral and
modern environments to produce seemingly dysfunctional behavior represents one kind
of unique insight on human behavior offered uniquely by an EP perspective and has
widespread implications across many areas of psychological inquiry.
Of course, various elements of this approach have appeared in other theoretical traditions
and subdisciplines over the history of psychology, both before and since Bowlby (1969). The
field flirted briefly with instinct psychology in the early 1900s, which collapsed as quickly
as it began due to an impoverished understanding of how “instincts” actually work (cf. the
earlier fourth point). The tradition of behaviorism that was still influential when Bowlby wrote
ATTACHMENT AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 235
made liberal use of animal models, but for very different purposes (i.e., to study highly general
learning processes that were intended to explain behavior as an alternative to “instincts”; cf. the
earlier third point). Cognitive psychologists (and later, cognitive-science researchers) developed
models of cognition as functionally specialized information-processing systems, but typically
without reference to the evolutionary processes (and adaptive logic) responsible for designing
them.1 Bowlby’s genius was therefore not in producing any of these particular ideas per se, but
in pulling them together from disparate sources into a coherent, logically consistent framework
for reconceptualizing the nature and organization of human psychology.
Needless to say, the scientific world in which EP later emerged had changed in many
important ways since the publication of Bowlby (1969) two decades prior. As noted previously,
the idea that the mind/brain is highly modular—that is, comprises many, many functionally
specialized information-processing systems (rather than a handful of highly domain-general
ones)—had become well established in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive sci-
ence. To this well-established model, EP added a way of explaining why our evolved cognitive
architecture is the way it is, and a powerful theoretical basis for generating new hypotheses
about psychological mechanisms based on evolutionary theory. The field of sociobiology that
emerged in the mid-1970s brought a return to evolution-based theorizing but, like the tradition
of human behavioral ecology still popular today in anthropology and other fields, endeavored
to explain observable behavior directly in terms of natural selection without reference to the
psychological architecture that, at a proximal level, produces it.2 Evolutionary theory itself also
changed in numerous important ways, with the advent of several powerful new theories with
important implications for understanding (especially) social behavior (e.g., Trivers, 1971, 1972,
1974). Today we have many more theoretical tools at our disposal for generating hypotheses
about the design of human-evolved psychology than did Bowlby in 1969.
In the main, however, the basic template that Bowlby (1969) provided for developing a
psychological theory remains almost entirely intact in the form of contemporary EP. Humans are
characterized by a species-universal psychology that comprises highly numerous, functionally
domain-specific mechanisms and systems—analogous to the many specialized organs and
systems in the human body—that collectively constitute “human nature.” These cognitive adap-
tations, like our bodily organs and other physiological systems, evolved via natural selection
as solutions to adaptive problems faced recurrently by our distant ancestors. Consequently, we
can use our understanding of the processes and criteria by which natural selection operates to
develop (and empirically test) hypotheses about the nature and design of such mechanisms and
1 Another emerging discipline in the scientific study of religion, dubbed by Barrett (2007) and others as cognitive
science of religion, similarly adopts this assumption of a species-universal psychological architecture populated by
numerous, functionally specialized mechanisms and systems. Some of these approaches are grounded explicitly in EP,
but many others are not—although they may be “evolutionary” in the very different sense of cultural (vs. biological/
genetic) evolution. For a discussion of the ways in which EP and cognitive science of religion models do and do not
overlap, see Kirkpatrick (in press). 2 The principal argument leading to the emergence of EP as a discipline distinct from these other evolutionary
approaches was that a cognitive or psychological level of analysis, inserted between the evolutionary and behavioral
levels of analysis, is indispensible (e.g., Cosmides & Tooby, 1987; Symons, 1987). The genetic recipes resulting from
natural selection produce cognitive adaptations, which in turn interact with environmental inputs to produce behavior.
This previously missing link is essential for understanding the many ways in which behavior itself can often be
maladaptive or adaptively neutral. (For a recent discussion of this levels-of-analysis issue, see Kirkpatrick, 2009.)
236 KIRKPATRICK
systems. In effect, EP is a general approach—a paradigm or organizational metatheory—that
applies Bowlby’s recipe for theory building to all topics and questions in the field of psychology
(Buss, 1995). The attachment system, in this context, is just one among many, many cognitive
adaptations that make up our species’ evolved psychological architecture.
BEYOND ATTACHMENT: TOWARD AN EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION
Understanding why and how the attachment system (or any other cognitive adaptation) works
is analogous to understanding the nature and operation of a particular piece of software on
your computer, such as your favorite word-processing program. To understand more generally
how your computer is able to accomplish the immense range of tasks of which it is capable,
this one particular program would represent just one of many pieces of the puzzle; a compre-
hensive understanding would necessarily include reference to web browsers, statistical analysis
programs, spreadsheet programs, and so forth. An understanding of each of these, in turn,
would require further analysis of the many smaller, specialized programs and subroutines of
which each of these larger systems is constructed. Moreover, an understanding of the function
for which each program was designed would be indispensible to your effort to understand how
it works.
Further, note that a proper understanding of your computer’s “behavior” would be hampered
by efforts to focus upon any one specific program to explain operations that actually reflect the
operation of some other program. We have all had the (often annoying) experience of trying
to learn how to use a new program and discovering that commands that worked in another
more familiar program no longer have the same effects; different programs operate by different
rules. It would be a mistake to try to explain as much of the computer’s behavior as possible
in terms of the operation of, say, your word-processing program, rather than assuming from
the beginning that different programs are likely to be responsible for word processing and
statistical analysis. In the same way, it would be a mistake to try to explain too much about
human psychology, including religious belief and behavior, in terms of the attachment system.
We will make much more progress much more quickly if we acknowledge from the beginning
that attachment is just one of many evolved psychological systems likely to influence religion,
rather than overextending attachment theory beyond its natural explanatory domain.
The central task of a psychology of religion founded upon EP, then, is to identify the evolved
psychological systems that give rise to and guide thinking and behavior that we choose to define
as “religious,” and to explain why and how this occurs. The attachment system is one such
system—one that, as illustrated by the present special issue, has provided the basis for many
specific hypotheses that have received considerable empirical support. I by no means wish to
discourage continued research on attachment and religion, but I do wish to suggest that the field
would benefit greatly by also moving on to the study of the many other evolved psychological
systems that contribute to religious belief and behavior as well.
Elsewhere (Kirkpatrick, 1999, 2005) I have sketched outlines of what I consider a few highly
promising directions in this regard, particularly within the context of functionally distinct kinds
of interpersonal relationships. Bowlby was emphatic that attachment refers to a very specific
kind of interpersonal relationship. Given our history as a highly social species, one major class
ATTACHMENT AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 237
of adaptive problems faced by ancestral humans involved those posed by relationships with
other people. Consequently, a considerable proportion of our evolved psychology is designed
for negotiating the many functionally distinct kinds of interpersonal relationships (including
attachment) that humans must negotiate.
For example, humans (like many other species) are expected to possess cognitive adaptions
for identifying genetic kin and behaving differently toward kin than non-kin. As Hamilton
(1964) showed, natural selection designs adaptations according to the strict criterion of inclusive
fitness: that is, the degree to which genes coding for the adaptation become more numerous in
future generations (relative to genes for alternative designs). One way for genes to outcompete
alternative genes is to build organisms that survive long enough to successfully reproduce—the
attachment system is an example of such an adaptation—but another way is to behave in ways
that benefit other organisms who are likely to carry copies of those same genes. One obvious
example of such kin-based altruism is, of course, the parental caregiving system, the existence
of which was essential in order for the attachment system to have evolved. Other potential
roles of kinship-psychology systems remain largely unexplored by psychologists of religion,
other than the widely acknowledged observation that kinship language (e.g., God as Father,
Jesus as the Son of God, fellow worshippers as “brothers and sisters,” etc.) is commonplace
in religious texts and communities (e.g., Batson, 1983). However, the psychology of kinship
represents an important point of contact with many anthropological views of religion, which
have long emphasized the importance of kinship perceptions in world religions, such as beliefs
about ancestors, and the important role such thinking plays in knitting cultural groups into
cohesive, cooperative units (e.g., Crippen & Machalek, 1989).
Beyond close kin, however, we generally do not feel compelled to invest in others’ welfare,
nor expect them to be invested in ours. Most other cooperative social relationships, beyond
kinship, are governed by an evolved social exchange system based on the evolutionary principle
of reciprocal altruism. Whereas Christian beliefs about God may largely reflect the operation
of the attachment system (i.e., the perception that God is an attachment figure who cares about
you and loves you, and thus provides a haven of safety and secure base), the gods of most
religions around the world do not resemble attachment figures at all. Instead, they are far more
often perceived as social-exchange partners who can do things that benefit people, but only in
exchange for people doing something in return, such as offering particular forms of sacrifice
(Burkert, 1996; Ridley, 1996). Social-exchange (as opposed to attachment-based) reasoning
about God also occurs to various degrees in some Christian traditions, as in the belief that
God’s love and support is contingent on humans performing “good works” or repenting for
sins. (Note that there is no reason why beliefs and reasoning about a particular relationship,
with a person or a god, must involve only one psychological system to the exclusion of others:
For example, a parent who generally functions as an attachment figure might still offer an
allowance to a child in exchange for performing chores around the house.)
Another domain of evolved psychology of clear relevance and importance for understanding
religion is that of coalitional psychology, according to which humans readily distinguish
ingroup from outgroup members and treat them differentially. On the positive side, coali-
tional psychology provides a foundation for mutual cooperation and altruism within religious
communities; on the negative side, it provides a foundation for intergroup conflict. An EP-
based understanding of coalitional psychology will be crucial for addressing some of the most
long-standing issues in the psychology of religion, such as the ways in which religion both
238 KIRKPATRICK
“makes and unmakes prejudice” (Allport, 1954, p. 444). The empirical finding that religious
fundamentalism correlates more positively with outgroup prejudice than do other dimensions of
religiosity, for example, is consistent with the idea that fundamentalist ideology largely reflects
the inclusion of a strong coalitional-psychology element in religion (Laythe, Finkel, Bringle,
& Kirkpatrick, 2002). Again, it is doubtful that the attachment system plays an important role
in such coalitional thinking.
Of obvious relevance to the psychology of religion is the question of whether, among
the many domain-specific cognitive adaptations that make up our evolved psychological ar-
chitecture, there exist one or more mechanisms or systems designed by natural selection
specifically “for” religion. Elsewhere I have delineated numerous reasons to be skeptical about
this possibility: It is much more difficult than one might expect to make a persuasive case that
religiosity (or any particular aspect of it) would have reliably solved adaptive problems—in the
crucial sense of enhancing reproductive success or inclusive fitness—in ancestral environments,
and would have done so more effectively than much simpler designs that natural selection
could have found much more readily (Kirkpatrick, 2006, 2008). The application of attachment
theory to the psychology of religion illustrates the alternative to this religion-as-adaptation
hypothesis by conceptualizing religion as an evolutionary by-product of a system that evolved
for other purposes (in this case, maintaining proximity between young children and their
primary caregivers). This is not to say that religion cannot be beneficial or functional in various
ways for individuals or groups, of course, but it does imply that we should not necessarily
expect it to always be so (which, of course, it isn’t).
OTHER IMPLICATIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION
Beyond the various arguments just developed, adopting an evolutionary-psychological perspec-
tive on the psychology of religion offers a variety of other advantages over other kinds of
psychological theories. In this section I briefly outline a few ways in which EP provides useful
ways of addressing or reframing some of the field’s most central and long-standing problems.
(For a more thorough discussion, see Kirkpatrick, in press.)
First, as noted earlier, one of the strengths of attachment theory is its ability to explain,
within a single theoretical framework, both the normative aspects of attachment (and religion)
and individual differences in attachment (and religion). Conceptualizing religion as the by-
product(s) of many different psychological systems adds a layer to this analysis: Whereas
commonalities in religious belief and behavior across individuals and cultures can be understood
in terms of the species-universal psychology from which it emerges as a by-product, differences
between individuals and cultures can be traced to two kinds of sources. First, as illustrated
by attachment theory, any particular evolved system is likely to produce certain predictable
patterns of individual differences as a consequence of an individual’s experience in the relevant
domain. Much as repeated experience with an unreliable or unavailable attachment figure
can lead over time to recalibration of attachment-system parameters and thus stable patterns
of individual differences in behavior (i.e., secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent attachment
“styles”), individual differences in experience in domains of coalitional conflict, social exchange
reasoning, and so forth, are likely to lead to predictable changes in parameters of these
ATTACHMENT AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 239
respective systems and corresponding patterns of individual differences. That is, to the extent
that a particular individual’s (or culture’s) religious thinking is a by-product of any particular
psychological system, individual differences emerging from that underlying system are likely to
be reflected along certain dimensions of religiosity. Second, individual and cultural differences
may alternatively reflect the relative degree to which various psychological systems influence
an individual’s or culture’s religious beliefs. That is, people or cultures whose religious thinking
is guided primarily by coalitional psychology—perhaps, as suggested earlier, in fundamentalist
religions—will likely differ systematically from people whose religious thinking is guided
primarily by social exchange or attachment.
Second, similarly, conceptualizing psychology in terms of numerous, functionally specialized
evolved mechanisms offers a natural basis for delineating types or varieties of religion and
spirituality, in a way that corresponds to differences that are functionally important rather than
merely descriptive. For example, one might develop a typology of varieties of prayer in terms
of the underlying psychological systems that motivate them: Attachment-based prayer might
reflect efforts to feel close to God or to solicit support and protection; prayer based on social-
exchange reasoning might involve attempts to determine what God wants or expects in exchange
for requested favors; prayers based on a cognitive system for negotiating dominance hierarchies
might mainly focus on acknowledging God’s greatness and omnipotence. Such a functional
approach to analyzing types would not only provide a nonarbitrary basis for classification, but
also provide a clear theoretical basis for generating specific hypotheses about, for example,
the particular environmental conditions (and patterns of individual differences, as noted in the
immediately preceding paragraph), likely to motivate or give rise to them.
Third, an evolutionary-psychological approach provides a useful way of operationalizing
the long-standing (but often ambiguously framed) question regarding whether religion is sui
generis: that is, whether or not it in principle it can be fully explained in terms of other
mundane processes or phenomena (see Pargament, Magyar-Russell, & Murray-Swank, 2005,
for a discussion). In evolutionary terms, this question can be reframed precisely in terms of
whether religion (or some aspect of it) is the product of an adaptation specifically designed
for this purpose, or whether it is a by-product of one or more systems that evolved for other
purposes. According to the latter view, for which I have argued, religion should (at least
in principle) be understandable without reference to any unique, religion-specific cognitive
adaptations. If one could successfully make the case for the evolution of one or more religion-
specific cognitive adaptations, however, the answer would be different.
Fourth, and relatedly, the evolutionary-psychological approach that I have outlined here
offers insights into the timeless problem of defining terms such as “religion” and “spirituality” in
the first place. If one wishes to argue for the existence of religion-specific cognitive adaptations,
it is incumbent upon him or her to be able to specify precisely the particular kinds of thoughts,
values, experiences, or behaviors that such a system is designed to produce: Those particular
outcomes would serve as a functional, theoretically based definition of religion. On the other
hand, if religion is viewed as a by-product of numerous evolved systems designed by natural
selection for other purposes—and thus is not sui generis in this sense—then there is probably
little point in even attempting to impose a precise definition upon it at all, and we should not be
surprised that for any example of a belief or behavior that we would be inclined to refer to as
“religious,” it is easy to generate examples of phenomena that seem highly similar to it in one
or more ways but that most of us would agree are not “religious.” Indeed, the fact that highly
240 KIRKPATRICK
motivated scholars have been unable for centuries to identify a single common thread that
unambiguously distinguishes religion from nonreligion constitutes one important argument in
favor of a multiple-by-product hypothesis, and against an adaptationist hypothesis, of religion.
CONCLUSIONS
It is unfortunate that after the publication of Bowlby (1969), nearly two decades passed until a
different group of researchers effectively reinvented Bowlby’s wheel, writ large in the form of
modern evolutionary psychology. These researchers shared with Bowlby the assumptions that
human psychology is inherently organized, like the rest of the body, in terms of functionally
specialized mechanisms and systems, and that to understand how a system (in this case, a
psychological system) works, it is invaluable to begin with an understanding (or at least
a hypothesis) regarding what that system is designed to do, and why. Once this general
perspective is adopted, it becomes abundantly clear that attachment theory is but one of
countless evolutionary theories upon which the psychology of religion might be built.
As I argued in the first part of this article, I am convinced that one reason for the success
and longevity of attachment theory is that Bowlby got it essentially right. We will not know for
another 20 years whether the application of his theory to the psychology of religion proves to
have that same level of staying power. I am sufficiently optimistic, however, that I suggest we
now start the clock for a broader evolutionary psychology of religion, within which attachment
theory will continue to have an important role alongside many other equally “good ideas” that,
for now, await further development.
REFERENCES
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Barrett, J. L. (2007). Cognitive science of religion: What is it and why is it? Religion Compass, 1, 768–786.
Batson, C. D. (1983). Sociobiology and the role of religion in promoting prosocial behavior: An alternative view.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1380–1385.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Vol. 1. Attachment. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Burkert, W. (1996). Creation of the sacred: Tracks of biology in early religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new paradigm for psychological science. Psychological Inquiry, 6,
1–30.
Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications
(2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.
Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1987). From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link. In J. Dupre
(Ed.), The latest on the best: Essays on evolution and optimality (pp. 121–146). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Crippen, T., & Machalek, R. (1989). The evolutionary foundations of the religious life. International Review of
Sociology, 3, 61–84.
Granqvist, P., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2008). Attachment and religious representations and behavior. In J. Cassidy &
P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (2nd ed., pp. 906–933).
New York, NY: Guilford.
Granqvist, P., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (in press). Religion, spirituality, and attachment. In K. I. Pargament, J. Exline, &
J. Jones. (Eds.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality. Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
ATTACHMENT AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 241
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The evolution of social behavior. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1–52.
Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. American Psychologist, 13, 673.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1992). An attachment-theory approach to the psychology of religion. The International Journal for
the Psychology of Religion, 2, 3–28.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1999). Toward an evolutionary psychology of religion. Journal of Personality, 67, 921–952.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. New York, NY: Guilford.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2006). Religion is not an adaptation. In P. McNamara (Ed.), Where God and science meet: How
brain and evolutionary studies alter our understanding of religion (Vol. 1, pp. 159–179). Westport, CT: Praeger
Perspectives.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2008). Religion is not an adaptation: Some fundamental issues and arguments. In R. Sosis,
J. Bulbulia, E. Harris, C. Genet, R. Genet, & K. Wyman (Eds.), The evolution of religion: Studies, theories, and
critiques (pp. 47–52). Santa Margarita, CA: Collins Foundation Press.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2009). Between evolution and culture: Psychology at the nexus. In M. Schaller, S. J. Heine,
A. Norenzayan, T. Yamagishi, & T. Kameda (Eds.), Evolution, culture, and the human mind (pp. 71–79). Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (in press). Evolutionary psychology: An emerging new foundation for the psychology of religion.
In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (2nd ed.). New
York, NY: Guilford.
Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Shaver, P. R. (1990). Attachment theory and religion: Childhood attachments, religious beliefs,
and conversion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 29, 315–334.
Laythe, B., Finkel, D., Bringle, R., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2002). Religious fundamentalism as a predictor of prejudice:
A two-component model. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 623–635.
Lorenz, K. E. (1957). Der Kumpan in der Umvelt des Vogels [The nature of instinct]. In C. H. Shiller (Ed.), Instinctive
behavior (pp. 129–175). New York, NY: International Universities Press.
Pargament, K. I., Magyar-Russell, G. M., & Murray-Swank, N. A. (2005). The sacred and the search for significance:
Religion as a unique process. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 665–687.
Ridley, M. (1996). The origins of virtue: Human instincts and the evolution of cooperation. New York, NY: Viking.
Symons, D. (1987). If we’re all Darwinians, what’s the fuss about? In C. B. Crawford, M. F. Smith, & D. L. Krebs
(Eds.), Sociobiology and psychology (pp. 121–146). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1990). On the universality of human nature and the uniqueness of the individual: The role
of genetics and adaptation. Journal of Personality, 58, 17–67.
Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby
(Eds.), The adapted mind (pp. 19–136). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Trivers, R. L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35–57.
Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In R. B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the
descent of man: 1871–1971 (pp. 136–179). Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Trivers, R. L. (1974). Parent–offspring conflict. American Zoologist, 24, 249–264.
Copyright of International Journal for the Psychology of Religion is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and
its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's
express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
