Exploring Types of Prayer and Quality of Life: A Research Note

Psychological type and prayer preferences: A study among Anglican clergy in the United Kingdom

“…Compared with this early and promising start, several commentators writing a century later noted the lack of contemporary research building on this pioneering tradition (see Finney & Maloney, 1985;Hood, Morris, & Watson, 1987Poloma & Pendleton, 1989;Janssen, de Hart, & den Draak, 1989). During the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, renewed interest has emerged in the empirical investigation of prayer in general and within the psychology of religion in particular, as illustrated, for example, by Current research within the psychology of prayer is beginning to develop the field in two significant ways.…”

“…First, in place of temperament, it is proposed to assess prayer preferences in terms of the eight discrete concepts proposed by psychological type theory: extraversion, introversion, sensing, intuition, thinking, feeling, perceiving, and judging. Second, it is proposed to operationalise these eight prayer preferences as an original way of describing individual differences in prayer and as an alternative framework to the kind of frameworks previously proposed, for example, by Poloma and Pendleton (1989) and by Ladd and Spilka (2002) as described above. Third, it is hypothesised that, although prayer preferences may be properly and helpfully understood in terms of the powerful description of individual differences proposed by psychological type theory, such preferences are much more than a simple projection of an individual"s basic psychological type.…”

“…A good example of attempts to explore and to assess types of prayer is provided in the classic study reported by Poloma and Pendleton (1989). The annual Akron Area Study in 1985 included 15 questions tapping private prayer activities.…”

“…The fourth form, styled "colloquial prayer", comprised six items (α = .85): asking God to provide guidance in making decisions; thanking God for God"s blessings; asking God to forgive you your sins; talking with God in your own words; asking God to lessen world suffering; and spending time telling God how much you love God. In addition to proposing measures of these four forms of prayer, Poloma and Pendleton (1989) also proposed a five-item measure of "prayer experience" (α = .87): feeling divinely inspired or led by God to perform some specific action as a result of prayer; receiving what you believed to be a deeper insight into a spiritual or biblical truth; receiving what you regarded as a definite answer to a specific request; feeling a strong presence of God during prayer; and experiencing a deep sense of peace and well-being during prayer.…”

“…In their foundation study, Poloma and Pendleton (1989) proceeded to examine the relationship between five measures of quality of life (defined as life satisfaction, existential well-being, happiness, negative affect, and religious satisfaction) with their four forms of prayer, prayer experience, and frequency of prayer. On the basis of their analyses, they concluded that in the prediction of quality of life variables the frequency of prayer is less important than what one actually does during prayer (meditative, ritualist, petitonary or colloquial) and what happens when one prays (prayer experience).…”