An experimental investigation of the relationships among race, prayer, and pain

Background and aims Compared to White individuals, Black individuals demonstrate a lower pain tolerance. Research suggests that differences in pain coping strategies, such as prayer, may mediate this race difference. However, previous research has been cross-sectional and has not determined whether prayer in and of itself or rather the passive nature of prayer is driving the effects on pain tolerance. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationships among race, prayer (both active and passive), and pain tolerance. Methods We randomly assigned 208 pain-free participants (47% Black, 53% White) to one of three groups: active prayer (“God, help me endure the pain”), passive prayer (“God, take the pain away”), or no prayer (“The sky is blue”). Participants first completed a series of questionnaires including the Duke University Religion Index, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire-Revised (CSQ-R), and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Participants were then instructed to repeat a specified prayer or distractor coping statement while undergoing a cold pressor task. Cold pain tolerance was measured by the number of seconds that had elapsed while the participant’s hand remained in the cold water bath (maximum 180 s). Results Results of independent samples t-tests indicated that Black participants scored higher on the CSQ-R prayer/hoping subscale. However, there were no race differences among other coping strategies, religiosity, or catastrophizing. Results of a 2 (Race: White vs. Black)×3 (Prayer: active vs. passive vs. no prayer) ANCOVA controlling for a general tendency to pray and catastrophizing in response to prayer indicated a main effect of prayer that approached significance (p=0.06). Pairwise comparisons indicated that those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater pain tolerance than those in the passive (p=0.06) and no prayer (p=0.03) conditions. Those in the passive and no prayer distractor conditions did not significantly differ (p=0.70). There was also a trending main effect of race [p=0.08], with White participants demonstrating greater pain tolerance than Black participants. Conclusions Taken together, these results indicate that Black participants demonstrated a lower pain tolerance than White participants, and those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater tolerance than those in the passive and no prayer conditions. Furthermore, Black participants in the passive prayer group demonstrated the lowest pain tolerance, while White participants in the active prayer group exhibited the greatest tolerance. Results of this study suggest that passive prayer, like other passive coping strategies, may be related to lower pain tolerance and thus poorer pain outcomes, perhaps especially for Black individuals. On the other hand, results suggest active prayer is associated with greater pain tolerance, especially for White individuals. Implications These results suggest that understanding the influence of prayer on pain may require differentiation between active versus passive prayer strategies. Like other active coping strategies for pain, active prayer may facilitate self-management of pain and thus enhance pain outcomes independent of race. Psychosocial interventions may help religiously-oriented individuals, regardless of race, cultivate a more active style of prayer to improve their quality of life

Prayer

Poetry Contest, First Priz

Prayer and subjective well-being : the application of a cognitive-behavioural framework

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between a model of prayer and a measure of subjective well-being within the context of a cognitive-behavioural framework. A community sample of 173 (77 males and 96 females) British adults completed measures of prayer activity and the General Health Questionnaire-28. The present findings suggest that meditative prayer, frequency of prayer, and prayer experience account for unique variance (among other measures of prayer) in a general measure of subjective well-being. The results demonstrate the potential usefulness of a cognitive-behavioural framework to help better understand the relationship between prayer and subjective well-being

Prayer and psychological health: a study among sixth-form pupils attending Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland

Eysenck's dimensional model of personality includes two indicators of psychological health, defined as neuroticism and psychoticism. In order to examine the association between psychological health and prayer, two samples of sixth-form pupils in Northern Ireland (16- to 18-year-olds) attending Catholic (N = 1246) and Protestant (N = 1060) schools completed the abbreviated Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire alongside a simple measure of prayer frequency. The data demonstrated a positive association between prayer frequency and better levels of psychological health as assessed by Eysenck's notion of psychoticism. Among pupils attending both Catholic and Protestant schools, higher levels of prayer were associated with lower psychoticism scores. Among pupils attending Catholic schools, however, higher levels of prayer were also associated with higher neuroticism scores

Are You There, God? It’s Me, the Theist: On the Viability and Virtue of Non-Doxastic Prayer

In this article, I explore the possibility of what I call “non-doxastic theistic prayer”, namely prayer that proceeds without full belief in God – or in the kind of God who could be the recipient of such prayer. After developing a working definition of prayer, I proceed to discuss a few prominent forms of prayer and explore the ways in which such prayer might legitimately be performed non-doxastically. I conclude by examining the possibility that some forms of what I call “prayerful pretense” may be more epistemically and morally virtuous than their fully doxastic counterparts

The Problem of Prayerlessness (Chapter 35 of Giving Ourselves to Prayer)

Prayer is probably the core spiritual practice of the Christian faith. Yet, despite the example of Jesus and the early church it is often an anemic part of our lives. A common response to this reality is to label prayerlessness-not taking time to pray-a sin problem. Jesus told us to pray, so we should pray. If we are not praying, the solution is to confess and repent, and then start praying. Start praying usually means attending prayer groups, keeping prayer notebooks, and interceding on behalf of others during one\u27s daily quiet time. However, in all my years of teaching prayer in seminary and in churches, I have found that prayerlessness truly grieves people. It is not easily resolved with a sin label. People usually feel shame that they are not as devoted to prayer as they believe they should be. So, if it is not sin, what might it be, and can anything be done about it

Legislator-Led Legislative Prayer and the Search for Religious Neutrality

Leading a group in prayer in a public setting blurs the line between public and private. Such blurring implicates a constitutional tension between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. This tension is magnified when the constitutionality of prayer is questioned in the context of democratic participation. Current Supreme Court precedent holds legislative prayer to be constitutional, but the relevant cases, Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece, NY v. Galloway, do not address the specific constitutionality of legislator-led prayer. There is currently a circuit split on the subject: in Bormuth v. County of Jackson, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held legislator-led legislative prayer to be constitutional, but in Lund v. Rowan County, N.C., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion, despite the case having strikingly similar facts. I seek to confront this tension. First, I challenge the validity of the precedent on legislative prayer. Then, accepting the current precedents as valid, I argue legislator-led prayer in public legislative sessions is unconstitutional. This analysis evaluates the interplay of the original intent of the Establishment Clause, the changes in the social structure of the United States since the eighteenth century, and the unique role of the legislator, separate from that of a guest minister or ordinary citizen. Ultimately, I attempt to inject empathy into legal analysis by pointing to the tangible effects of legislator-led prayer: alienation from the community and increased violence against religious minorities. I hope to highlight these harms as sufficient in themselves to implicate the Establishment Clause and to bolster the argument for holding this practice to be unconstitutional

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

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

Great Prayer Festival

This project was implemented to preserve Tibetan folk culture activities that are rapidly vanishing. We thank individuals and organizations who supported us. We also extend sincere appreciation to the United States Embassy in Beijing for sponsoring the project (the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation Program). Finally, we hope more people will join in the important task of preserving a record of traditional culture. Introduction. Friend of Rural Community Development is a local NGO registered in China, whose work focuses on improvement of rural education, culture, and environment. All the staff are locals dedicated to achieveing sustainable development for local people. Mr. Lugyal (Li Jia) is a native of Muhong Village, Daowei Tibetan Township, Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province, China. These cultural materials were collected from Xunhua Tibetan communities from 2008-2010. Disc Number 2: Great Prayer Festival. Filmed in Wendu Monastery, the largest Buddhist monastery in Xunhua, and a renowned monastery in Qinghai Province. Tibetan and Chinese descriptions available in 'Xunhua DVD Set Tibetan - description of the 9 DVDs.pdf'