Interpersonal Relationship With God

Problem In order to better understand how one’s interpersonal relationships relate to the connections one has with God, Kristin Laurin, Karina Schumann, and John G. Holmes, pioneered a study which explored how one’s interpersonal relationships affected their ongoing relationship with God. They hypothesized that people will seek a stronger relationship with God when facing rejection in other interpersonal relationships, but that when facing rejection by religion they will form stronger interpersonal connections with their human companions. Previous studies have explored how one’s relationship with God might affect their day to day lives. For example, the fact that God can act as a parental figure and meet all the criteria of an attachment …show more content…
In order to prove this, researchers took a dynamic approach to study how the subjects reacted to subtle threats on their interpersonal relationships. For this purpose, all of the participants completed an online study, either before or after having their romantic relationship threatened. The participants in the independent or trial group had to read about the “secret selves” that most people conceal from their partners, and that this secret identity often caused problems in relationships. After this, the subjects listed five characteristics that described their secret self. As a result, the participants in the trial group felt that their romantic relationship was being threatened. The other half of the subjects responded directly to the questions without learning any additional information pertaining to relationships. Both groups of participants were then asked to report their closeness with God twice, once on the Inclusion of Others in Self (IOS) scale and once on a relationship closeness scale. Additionally, the study looked at one’s willingness to accommodate God’s errors. To do this the participants had to rate their likelihood of engaging in each behavior on a scale of nine points ranging from extremely unlikely to extremely likely. Overall, they hoped that this would clarify the correlation that the status of one’s …show more content…
This study relates to my life in that I can see myself falling into the same trends as those who felt that their relationships were threatened. Realistically if one of my important interpersonal relationships was under attack I would most likely turn more to God and religion for comfort. I would be curious to see how these findings impacted people 's actual behaviors or if they changed how they acted once they found out the relation between these two types of relationships. I think that by analyzing the changes, if any, in behavior the knowledge of this correlation caused we can better see how one’s daily life is influenced by their relationship with