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One of the most striking pieces of evidence in attachment research is that attachment security is transmitted from 1 generation to the next. Although there has been an enormous advance in the understanding of this process, this area of research suffers from some significant gaps, as for example the transmission across 3 generations when considering the 2 parents as well as the 2 couples of grandparents. The current study was designed to fill this gap in existing literature by investigating AAI attachment representations in the members of 3 generations, belonging to a total of 32 families, each including an adult offspring, both parents and the 4 grandparents (N = 224). Main findings show that the transmission across 2 generations was stronger in the presence of a female caregiver (either mother or maternal/paternal grandmother), and that across 3 generations was confirmed only in the presence of 2 female caregivers (grandmother to mother to offspring). Conversely, the transmissions across 3 generations with only 1 or no female caregiver were not confirmed. Last, experiencing 2 secure parents increased the likelihood of developing a secure state of mind with respect to attachment among offspring, mothers and fathers, 95% confidence intervals [3.52, 1,238.72], [1.67, 31.17], and [1.67, 19.98], respectively. These findings may have important theoretical implications related to the understanding of the factors involved in the continuity and discontinuity of attachment patterns across generations.

Based on the idea that believers' perceived relationships with God develop from their attachment-related experiences with primary caregivers, the authors explored the quality of such experiences and their representations among individuals who differed in likelihood of experiencing a principal attachment to God. Using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), they compared attachment-related experiences and representations in a group of 30 Catholic priests and religious with a matched group of lay Catholics and with the worldwide normal distribution of AAI classifications. They found an overrepresentation of secure-autonomous states regarding attachment among those more likely to experience a principal attachment to God (i.e., the priests and religious) compared with the other groups and an underrepresentation of unresolved-disorganized states in the two groups of Catholics compared with the worldwide normal distribution. Key findings also included links between secure-autonomous states regarding attachment and estimated experiences with loving or nonrejecting parents on the one hand and loving God imagery on the other. These results extend the literature on religion from an attachment perspective and support the idea that generalized working models derived from attachment experiences with parents are reflected in believers' perceptions of God.