Psychoanalytic theory and loving God concepts: parent referencing versus self-referencing.
We investigated the relationship of college students' conceptions of the wrathfulness-kindliness of God to their parents' nurturance, their parents' permissiveness, authoritarianism, and authoritativeness, and the students' own self-esteem. Although parents' nurturance, authoritarianism, and authoritativeness were related to participants' conceptions of God (thus providing some support for psychoanalytic assertions), the variable of self-esteem far outweighed all other variables in accounting for the variance in God concepts. These results suggest that self-referencing explanations better account for individuals' conceptions of God than do parent referencing (i.e., psychoanalytic) explanations.
Department of Psychology, University of St. Thomas, St Paul, MN 55105.
J R
JR
Buri
R A
RA
Mueller
D000328:Adult; D002410:Catholicism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012649:Self Concept