Background and aims: Emerging research indicates that psychedelics may have therapeutic potential by fostering meaningful experiences that act as in fl ection points in people ' s narratives of personal development. However, psychedelic research has largely failed to address pertinent developmental considerations. We investigated whether attachment -related variables were associated with psychedelic experiences and whether psychedelic experiences moderated expected links between perceived attachment history and current adult attachment orientations. Methods: We administered an online survey to an international Jewish sample ( N = 185) with psychedelic experience. The survey included measures about recollection of attachment interactions with parents (perceived attachment history), adult attachment orientations (anxiety, avoidance), and psychedelic phenomenology (mystical experiences, challenging experiences, emotional breakthrough, ego dissolution, sensed presence) associated with respondents ' most memorable psychedelic experiences. Results: Perceptions of an insecure attachment history were positively linked to all measures of psychedelic phenomenology ( r ' s = 0.19 - 32, p ' s mostly < 0.01). In contrast, adult attachment orientations were unrelated to psychedelic phenomenology. Also, psychedelic phenomenology mostly did not moderate the links observed between perceptions of an insecure attachment history and adult attachment orientations. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that perceptions of early attachment experiences may be relevant to psychedelic phenomenology. However, subjective experiences associated with naturalistic psychedelic use do not typically attenuate links between a perceived insecure attachment history and attachment insecurity at present.

In this paper, we set an agenda for a psychedelic science of spirituality and religion based on attachment theory. Attachment theory proposes that people develop internal working models (IWMs) of interactions with others from their relational experiences with caregivers. Such IWMs then function as high-level priors or predictive models, enabling people, for better and for worse, to predict and organize their interpersonal and religious/spiritual relationships. One mechanism by which efficacious psychedelic interventions may work is by relaxing the grip of rigid, defensive priors (e.g. insecure IWMs with regard to others and God), further amplified by corrective relational experiences with the therapist, God, or others. We outline three key proposals to steer future research. First, individual differences in attachment security predict the phenomenology and integration of psychedelic experiences. Second, efficacious psychedelic therapy facilitates increased attachment security as a clinically relevant outcome. Third, attachment-related dynamics (e.g. a sense of connection to others/God/the universe, alleviation of attachment-related worries and defenses) are process-level mechanisms involved in the clinical utility of psychedelic treatment. Finally, we discuss the role of religion and spirituality in psychedelic experiences from an attachment perspective. 

Sweden is often described as a highly secularised country, but we know little of the actual worldviews among youths in Swedish classrooms. The current article has two aims: to examine ambiguous positions concerning supernatural phenomena among young Swedes, and to initiate a discussion about how teachers in religion education (RE) can use such ambiguity to bridge between pupils with secular and religious identities. In a sample of 302 young, urban Swedes (16–25 years old), we examined (1) self-reported (non-)belief in supernatural beings, (2) what they believe happens after death, and (3) if they report any supernatural experiences. The results illustrate that the majority held some kind of belief in the supernatural (the “Some”). Among the Nones who rejected such beliefs, a fifth yet described experiences which involved supernatural beings (e.g., spirits). To understand this contradiction, we employ cognitive theories on the tendency to attribute agency to supernatural powers that explain people’s intuitive conceptualisation of the supernatural. We argue that such ambiguity provides an inter­esting space where pupils can use their personal experiences to better understand peers with other worldviews, while also exploring their own worldviews. To highlight the importance of describing secularity as an equally complex phenomenon as religiosity, we also introduce the term secular literacy. The ultimate purpose is to bridge the problematic gap between Us (who are secular) and Them (who are religious), which is also an explicit goal in the RE syllabus.

Sverige beskrivs ibland som världens mest sekulariserade land, men det saknas forskning om de trosföreställningar som eleverna faktiskt bär med sig in i religionskunskapsundervisningen. Syftet med denna artikel är att undersöka ambivalens kring övernaturliga föreställningar hos unga svenskar, och att inleda ett samtal om hur religionskunskapslärare kan överbrygga klyftan mellan elever som identifierar sig som religiösa respektive sekulära. Vi undersökte självrapporterade trosföreställningar i ett urval av 302 unga, urbana svenskar (16–25 år gamla), samt vad de tror händer efter döden och om de haft någon upplevelse som de tolkar i övernaturliga termer. Resultaten visar att en majoritet av dessa har någon slags tro på det övernaturliga. En femtedel av dem som avfärdade översinnliga krafter beskrev dock upplevelser som involverade just sådana. Denna ambivalens diskuteras utifrån kognitiv teori om den mänskliga benägenheten att attribuera agens till de avlidna, illustrerad genom experimentella studier om vad människor säger kontra vad de intuitivt föreställer sig. Vi menar att sådan ambivalens kring det övernaturliga skapar utrymme för existentiella samtal mellan elever, där de både kan utforska sina personliga livsåskådningar och ges möjlighet att samtala över identitetsgränser. För att belysa vikten av att beskriva sekularitet som ett lika komplext fenomen som religiositet introducerar vi begreppet sekulär litteracitet. Syftet med en sådan omförhandling är att överbrygga den problematiska klyftan mellan Vi (som är sekulära) och De andra (som är religiösa), vilket också uttalas som mål i kursplanen för religionskunskapsämnet.

Previous research has linked people's relational attachment orientations to emotional reactions and coping during crises, and to social trust and trust in societal institutions. The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis for which collective efforts, such as social distancing, are necessary to stop the spread of the virus. During previous pandemics, people high in trust have typically adhered to such efforts. In the present study, we investigated whether attachment orientations were related to people's adherence to authorities' guidelines to stop the spread of COVID-19. We also tested whether previous mediational findings-linking attachment-related avoidance to welfare state trust via social trust-would replicate. We used a web-based survey of 620 participants. Our findings showed that attachment-related anxiety was linked to low adherence to social distancing regulations. This finding was especially noteworthy because high attachment-anxious participants also experienced more negative emotions, yet negative emotions were generally linked to high adherence. Thus, people higher in attachment anxiety seem to have more difficulties in avoiding social situations despite heightened risk of catching and spreading the virus. In addition, attachment-related avoidance was negatively related to adherence and to welfare state trust, and its effects on welfare state trust were statistically mediated by low social trust.

Social and political trust are crucial for societal well-being and are linked to lower levels of corruption as well as to the size of the welfare state. Interpersonal trust is shaped through attachment-related experiences in close interpersonal relationships. However, previous research has not linked these two strands of research, yielding an important knowledge gap about the potential implications of attachment for social and political trust. Therefore, we investigated whether attachment orientations are related to both social trust and trust in the welfare state. Data were collected in two countries with different organization and size of the welfare state, the United States (n = 284) and Sweden (n = 280). In both countries, attachment-related avoidance (but not anxiety) was negatively related both to social trust and trust in the welfare state, even after controlling for pertinent confounds. Our findings also suggested that social trust may mediate the link between avoidance and trust in the welfare state. These results cohere with an assumption that people’s attachment-related working models may extend to their models of the world at large. We conclude that interpersonal parameters should be considered to fully understand the development of trust in political institutions.

Because of the industrial revolution some 200 years ago, a growing part of the western world’s population started moving to cities and away from traditional sources of security, like families or local communities. Consequently, social security, such as aid for the sick and elderly, came to be organized through the public domain, giving rise to the welfare states. Today, in countries with more expansive welfare states people less readily turn to another source of security: religion. Thus, welfare states and religion may function as alternative, even competing, sources of security. The aim of the present thesis is to scrutinize whether people use the welfare state as a source of psychological security (the perceived freedom from worry or care) in a similar way as religious people may use their relationship with God. This is done through the framework of attachment theory and how believers’ relationship with God has been understood as an attachment relationship. Another aim is to explore whether people’s attachment-related mental models are linked to trust in welfare state institutions. The thesis includes two empirical studies, using experimental (Study 1) or correlational (Study 3) designs, and performed in two different contexts: Sweden (comprising an expansive welfare state but lower degrees of religiosity) and the US (comprising a smaller welfare state but higher degrees of religiosity). The thesis also includes a conceptual discussion of attachment relationships and figures (Study 2).

Study 1 tests whether people’s attention is directed towards the welfare state or God after exposure to threat primes, and if people report a greater willingness to take exploratory risks after being reminded of the welfare state or God. In neither Sweden nor the US did the welfare state function as a source of security in the hypothesized ways. Neither did God, in contrast to previous studies using the same methodology. These failed replications are possibly due to contextual differences between previous studies (conducted in Israel) and the present ones, such as differences in sensitivity to threats. In Study 2, the conceptual boundaries of the constituents of attachment relationships in relation to non-human objects are discussed. Based on Wittgenstein’s notion of “fuzzy boundaries” for categories, the importance of displaying resemblance with human attachments and of enabling the formation of a personal relationship is emphasized. God is argued to display these characteristics, but not the welfare state. Study 3 tests whether attachment orientations (in terms of avoidance and anxiety) are related to trust in welfare state institutions. In both Sweden and the US, attachment-related avoidance was related to lower trust in welfare state institutions, and this link was statistically mediated by low trust in other people. Avoidance may hence predispose for reluctance to seek comfort/support from other people as well as from societal institutions such as the welfare state.

In conclusion, although the security that the welfare state provides makes people less prone to turn to religion for security, people do not appear to use the welfare state as a source of psychological security in the same way as religious people may use their relationship with God. Also, people’s attachment (in-)security, more specifically avoidance, may influence not only behavior and attitudes in close relationships but also in relation to societal institutions.

The Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) has garnered intense attention over the past 15 years. We examined the structure of these traits' measure-the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD)-in a sample of 11,488 participants from three W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., North America, Oceania, Western Europe) and five non-W.E.I.R.D. (i.e., Asia, Middle East, non-Western Europe, South America, sub-Saharan Africa) world regions. The results confirmed the measurement invariance of the DTDD across participants' sex in all world regions, with men scoring higher than women on all traits (except for psychopathy in Asia, where the difference was not significant). We found evidence for metric (and partial scalar) measurement invariance within and between W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D. world regions. The results generally support the structure of the DTDD.

Objectives: The Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) capture individual differences in aversive personality to complement work on other taxonomies, such as the Big Five traits. However, the literature on the Dark Triad traits relies mostly on samples from English-speaking (i.e., Westernized) countries. We broadened the scope of this literature by sampling from a wider array of countries.

Method: We drew on data from 49 countries (N = 11,723; 65.8% female;Age(Mean) = 21.53) to examine how an extensive net of country-level variables in economic status (e.g., Human Development Index), social relations (e.g., gender equality), political orientations (e.g., democracy), and cultural values (e.g., embeddedness) relate to country-level rates of the Dark Triad traits, as well as variance in the magnitude of sex differences in them.

Results: Narcissism was especially sensitive to country-level variables. Countries with more embedded and hierarchical cultural systems weremorenarcissistic. Also, sex differences in narcissism werelargerinmoredeveloped societies: Women were less likely to be narcissistic in developed (vs. less developed) countries.

Conclusions: We discuss the results based on evolutionary and social role models of personality and sex differences. That higher country-level narcissism was more common in less developed countries, whereas sex differences in narcissism were larger in more developed countries, is more consistent with evolutionary than social role models.