Attachment style, religiosity, and well-being among Indonesian Christians

Abstract

This study examines attachment styles, religiosity as measured by religious coping, and church activities, for their possible impact on feelings of well-being in an Indonesian Christian community. This cross-sectional study was conducted on both purposive and snowball samples of 264 Christians from Bandung and Semarang, Indonesia. The study hypothesized that a more positive Self-Other Model of attachment, greater positive religious coping, and higher church involvement would predict greater well-being as measured by flourishing/eudaimonic, affective, and subjective well-being scales. Pearson correlation and multiple regression methods were used to analyze data. Results indicated that 15% of the total variance in affective well-being is attributable to positive self-model attachment, positive religious coping, and higher subjective religiosity/spirituality. The study also found that 9.9% of the total variance in flourishing or eudaimonic well-being is counted for the self-model. However, neither predictor was correlated to hedonistic or subjective well-being. Greater religiosity, as measured through the church activities, was also not correlated with greater measures in the three types of well-being. This study concluded that the predictive power of religiosity such as church activities and attachment to well-being may depend on the characteristics of the culture.

Keywords:

• Attachment style
• Christians
• culture
• Indonesia
• religious coping
• well-being

Acknowledgments

Data collection and preliminary analysis were sponsored by the Maranatha Christian University, School of Psychology, Indonesia and California Baptist University, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, USA. Portions of these findings were presented as a Live Webinar organized by Global Anabaptist Health Network of Mennonite World Conference on November 18, 2020. We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.