Download or read book “Lord, Hear Our Prayer”: how Interfaith Attachment to God and Religious Coping Influence Stress Levels written by Mary E. Montaldo and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kirkpartrick (1992) expanded on Bowlby’s (1969) Attachment Theory by creating “attachment to God”, the attachment relationship one forms with their divine figure. Research on the construct has found that those who report experiencing close, personal relationships with their divine figures have better psychological outcomes, (e.g., increased well-being, less depression, etc.). In addition, research has shown that the patterns people employ when using their religion to cope influence their psychological outcomes with positive religious coping producing beneficial outcomes and negative religious coping resulting in deleterious outcomes. While these findings are fairly stable, little research has explored findings among non-Christian samples, or studied the mediational role of religious coping in the relationship between attachment to God and stress. Therefore, the current study investigated this mediational model with 105 interfaith students at the University of the Pacific and Palo Alto University. The bootstrapping statistical method described by Hayes (2013) was conducted in order to test the model’s significance using the “PROCESS Procedure” macro for SPSS. Results showed that the attachment to God construct was relevant with non-Christian participants, Jewish participants had significantly more secure attachment to God than Protestant Christians, and the AGI may have mislabeled non-religious participants as having secure attachments. Religious coping also appeared relevant across faith groups and religious groups used religious coping strategies significantly more than non-religious groups. Finally, religious groups endorsed significantly higher rates of perceived and hassle stress than non-religious groups. Mediational model results were mixed, and the only significant models included positive religious coping. These models were significant even when the direct effects of attachment to God on stress were insignificant. Adding the ascription of faith as a moderator in the model had no significant effect on the results. Some possible explanations for the findings may be a lack of significance due to a small number of participants, more significant findings when the variable of attachment to significant others is included, and/or the directionality of the mediational model being incorrect. Future studies could focus on specific faith groups and stressors, and clinical applications include facilitating conceptualizations of religious clients and providing insight into their worldviews.