Prayer, purpose in life, and attitudes toward substances: a study among 13- to 15-year-olds in England and Wales

Abstract

This study set out to examine the association between prayer frequency, purpose in life and attitude toward substances, among a sample of 2,563 13- to 15-year-old secondary school pupils in England and Wales. Multivariate models controlling for sex, school year and personality (as defined by the Eysenkian dimensional model) demonstrated that higher levels of purpose in life are associated with greater prayer frequency, and that more proscriptive attitudes toward substances are associated with both higher levels of purpose in life and greater prayer frequency. These findings are consistent with a model suggesting that prayer frequency promotes a more negative view of substances both directly and indirectly through cultivating a greater sense of purpose in life