Abstract
Death anxiety, death obsession and death depression are the three dimensions of death distress, which can be influenced by religious variables. The current study examines whether attachment to God can predict death distress in Muslims. Sample data for the study were collected from 346 participants. The participants completed the Death Anxiety Scale, the Death Obsession Scale, the Death Depression Scale, and the Attachment to God Inventory. Data were analyzed using factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The results of principal component analysis showed that death anxiety, death obsession and death depression were separate factors of death distress. The results confirmed that anxious attachment to God was a significant predictor of death anxiety, death obsession and death depression (p < 0.001). Consistent with previous studies and attachment theory, this finding emphasized the role of insecure attachment to God in increasing death distress and also in possible consequent psychopathology.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (1998). The structure and measurement of death obsession. Personality and Individual Differences, 24, 159–165. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.98.1.31-34.
Abdel-Khalek, A. M., & Lester, D. (2009). Death anxiety as related to somatic symptoms in two cultures. Psychological Reports, 105, 409–410. https://doi.org/10.2466/PR0.105.2.409-410.
Abdel-khalek, A. M., & Tomas-Sabado, J. (2005). Anxiety and death anxiety in Egyptian and Spanish nursing students. Death studies, 29, 157–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481180590906174.
Aflakseir, A., & Coleman, P. G. (2011). Initial development of the Iranian religious coping scale. Journal of Muslim Mental Health, 6(1), 44–61.
Arndt, J., Routledge, C., Cox, C. R., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2005). The worm at the core: A terror management perspective on the roots of psychological dysfunction. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 11, 191–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appsy.2005.07.002.
Beck, R., & Mc Donald, A. (2004). Attachment to god: The attachment to god inventory, tests of working model correspondence, and an exploration of faith group differences. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 32, 22–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/009164710403200202.
Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). New York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Clinical application of attachment theory. London: Routledge.
Bradshaw, M., Ellison, C. G., & Marcum, J. P. (2010). Attachment to god, images of god, and psychological distress in a Nationwide sample of Presbyterians. International Journal of Psychology of Religion, 20(2), 130–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508611003608049.
Dozier, M., Stovall, K., & Albus, K. (1999). Attachment and psychopathology in adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of adult attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 497–519). New York: Guilford Press.
Eshbaugh, E., & Henninger, W. (2013). Potential mediators of the relationships between gender and death anxiety. Individual Differences Research, 11, 22–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579413000916.
Fessler, D. M. T., & Navarrete, C. D. (2005). The effect of age on death disgust: Challenges to terror management perspective. Evolutionary Psychology, 3, 279–296. https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490500300120.
Furer, P., & Walker, J. R. (2008). Death anxiety: A cognitive–behavioral approach. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 22, 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1891/0889-8391.22.2.167.
Granqvist, P. (1998). Religiousness and perceived childhood attachment: On the question of compensation or correspondence. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37(2), 350–367.
Granqvist, P., & Hagekull, B. (2003). Longitudinal predictions of religious change in adolescence: Contributions from the interaction of attachment and relationship status. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 20, 793–817. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407503206005.
Granqvist, P., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2004). Religious conversion and perceived childhood attachment: A meta-analysis. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14, 223–250. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr1404_1.
Granqvist, P., Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2010). Religion as attachment: Normative processes and individual differences. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309348618.
Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). Springer, New York, NY.
Hayes, J., Schimel, J., & Williams, T. J. (2008). Fighting death with death: The buffering effects of learning that worldview violators have died. Psychological Science, 19(5), 501–507. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02115.x.
Horton, K.D., Ellison, C.G., Loukas, A., Downey, D.L., & & Barrett, J.B. (2012). Examining attachment to god and health risk-taking behaviors in college students. Journal of Religion and Health, 51, 552–566 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9380-5.
Iverach, L., Menzies, A. G., & Menzies, A. E. (2014). Death anxiety and its role in psychopathology: Reviewing the status of a transdiagnostic construct. Clinical Psychology Review, 34, 580–593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.09.002.
Jonas, E., & Fischer, P. (2006). Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(3), 553–567. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.3.553.
Kastenbaum, R. (2000). The psychology of death (3rd ed.). New York: Springer Publishing.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1999). Attachment and religious representations and behavior. In Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp.803–822). New York: Guilford Press.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (1994). The role of attachment in religious belief and behavior. In D. Perlman & K. Bartholomew (Eds.), Advances in personal relationships (Vol. 5, pp. 239–265). London: Jessica Kingsley.
Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2005). Attachment, evolution, and the psychology of religion. New York: Guilford.
Lester, D. (2003). Death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession. Psychological Reports, 93(3), 695–696.
Maxfield, M., John, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (2014). A terror management perspective on the role of death-related anxiety in psychological dysfunction. The Humanistic Psychologist, 42(1), 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/08873267.2012.732155.
McLaughlin, K. A., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2011). Rumination as a transdiagnostic factor in depression and anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 49, 186–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2010.12.006.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2012). An attachment perspective on psychopathology. World Psychiatry, 11(1), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wpsyc.2012.01.003.
Miner, M. (2009). The impact of child- parent attachment, attachment to god and religious orientation on psychological adjustment. Journal of Psychology and Theology, ٣٧(٢), ١١٤–١٢٤.
Mohammadzadeh, A., & Najafi, M. (2016). Factor analysis and validation of the brief religious coping scale (brief-RCOPE) in Iranian university students. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 19, 911–919. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2017.1282445.
Neimeyer, R. A., Wittkowski, J., & Moser, R. P. (2004). Psychological research on death attitudes: An overview and evaluation. Death studies, 28(4), 309–340.
Rowatt, W. C., & Kirkpatrick, L. A. (2002). Two dimensions of attachment to god and their relation to affect, religiosity, and personality constructs. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 637–651. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5906.00143.
Sim, T. N., & Yow, A. S. (2011). God attachment, mother attachment, and father attachment in early and middle adolescence. Journal of Religion and Health, 50, 264–278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-010-9342-y.
Solomon Mashegoanea, M., & Makhubel, M. S. (2016). Factorial validity of the death obsession scale in African University students. Death Studies, 40(1), 40–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2015.1056564.
Templer, D. I. (1970). The construction and validation of a death anxiety scale. Journal of General Psychology, 82, 165–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.1970.9920634.
Templer, D. I., Lavoie, M., Chalgujian, H., & Thomas-Dobson, S. (1990). The measure of death depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 46, 834–839. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199011)46:6<834::AID-JCLP2270460623>3.0.CO;2-0.
Wen, Y. H. (2010). Religiosity and death anxiety. The Journal of Human Resource and Adult Learning, 6, 31–37.
Yaryura-Tobias, J. A., Grunes, M. S., Todaro, J., McKay, D., Neziroglu, F. A., & Stockman, R. (2000). Nosological insertion of Axis I disorders in the etiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 14, 19–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0887-6185(99)00027-4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mohammadzadeh, A., Oraki, M. Attachment to God as a predictor of death distress among Muslims. Curr Psychol 39, 2314–2319 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9934-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-018-9934-3