*Prayer

Reviews the book, The Psychology of Prayer by Anna Louise Strong (see record 1909-10306-000). In her booklet of seven sections, the author maintains her theory of prayer as a form of the imaginative social process. It has for its end, the construction of a wider self. Many of the so-called objective results of prayer are attained indirectly through the construction of a more confident self, through a better interpretation of the circumstances involved, or through subconscious activities in a variety of forms. Prayers for the sick have a therapeutic effect.

In the article "An empirical study of prayer", by James Bissett Pratt (Amer. J. of Relig. Psychol. and Educ., 1910, 4, 47-67), the questionnaire method is used to address the questions: "In what do people's prayers actually consist? What is their nature and content? How are they used? and How well do they serve their purpose?" This brief review examines the results of the study.

Religious rituals and ceremonials function to give an outlet for many crude, selfish, or primitive and infantile impulses upon a socially acceptable level. The function of hymns in these religious practices is the object of study in this paper. Nearly three thousand hymns were examined and classified into general categories of appeal. The majority of these hymns were found to deal with infantile return and future reward. Concern with sinfulness and attendant redemption and purification take up somewhat over 16% of the total grouping.

63 male churchgoers, ages 18 to 25 years, were asked to introject themselves into 6 described situations; 3 pleasant and 3 unpleasant. Each subject ranked the situations for affect (emotional involvement), for frustration (inability to respond effectively in the situation), and for liklihood of prayer in the situation. Reasons for praying in some situations were also solicited. Correlations between these rank orders, and also partial correlations, were obtained for each subject. Both affect and frustration are related to the need for prayer, although there are wide individual differences.

In 1988, I started to write in a journal to explore my experience with prayer and spirituality, my psychiatric illness, and my troubles. To this day, I still write and pray, but the words on the paper are different because I am viewing my illness in a different light. For these many years, my journal has been private, but now I am sharing my story with you. I hope that you will find this writing interesting and inspiring. With time, I have come to consider that difficulties can teach us many different lessons.

The objective of these studies was to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between prayer and gratitude. In Study 1 (n = 674), the authors replicated the cross-sectional association between prayer frequency and gratitude that has been demonstrated in previous research. In Study 2 (n = 780), prayer frequency predicted gratitude 6 weeks later even when controlling for initial gratitude and religiosity. In Study 3 (n = 832), the authors replicated this longitudinal relationship, this time also controlling for socially desirable responding.

Multiple methods were used to examine children’s awareness of connections between emotion and prayer. Four-, 6-, and 8-year-olds and adults (N = 100) predicted whether people would pray when feeling different emotions, explained why characters in different situations decided to pray, and predicted whether characters’ emotions would change after praying. Four- and 6-year-olds exclusively judged that positive emotions motivate prayer, whereas 8-year-olds and adults most often predicted that negative emotions would cause people to pray and that praying could improve emotions.

Objective: Existing evidence on the relationship between religious involvement and health indicates that organizational religious involvement, such as attendance at services, is associated with better health. Findings concerning other dimensions of religious involvement, such as prayer, are inconsistent and analyses often neglect the potential influence of other correlated dimensions.

Reports an error in "Faith and unfaithfulness: Can praying for your partner reduce infidelity" by Frank D. Fincham, Nathaniel M. Lambert and Steven R. H. Beach (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, , , np). The article contained an error in Table 2, in the third column table heading. The correct table heading is provided in the erratum.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 99(4) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2010-20570-001). The article contained an error in Table 2, in the third column table heading. The correct table heading is provided in the erratum.] Because religion and/or spirituality is integral to the lives of a majority of the world population, we conducted 3 studies on the role of prayer in romantic relationships.