Insights From Scholarship the Relationship Between Personal Prayer and Purpose in Life Among Churchgoing and Non‐churchgoing Twelve‐to‐fifteen‐year‐olds in the Uk

Abstract

The relationship between personal prayer and perceived purpose in life is explored among two samples of twelve-to-fifteen-year-olds. The first sample comprises 914 males and 726 females who never attend church. The second sample comprises 232 males and 437 females who attend church most weeks. The data demonstrate a significant positive relationship between frequency of personal prayer and perceived purpose in life among both groups.

Implicit Religion, Explicit Religion and Attitude Toward Substances

“…While the psychoticism scale displays an alpha coefficient of .60, this is high, given the historic difficulties typically encountered by the psychoticism scales in general (Francis, Philipchalk, & Brown, 1991). The lie scale displays the lowest alpha coefficient of .54, which also is in line with previous research findings (Francis, 1996). Table 4 presents the correlation matrix for all the variables included in the study.…”

“…Empirical research concerned with the connection between religiosity and purpose in life has routinely demonstrated that explicit religiosity (defined as frequency of church attendance) is associated with an enhanced sense of purpose in life (Francis & Burton, 1994;Francis & Evans, 1996;Francis, 2000;Robbins & Francis, 2005;. On this basis, Francis argued that, if implicit religiosity serves the same function as explicit religiosity, implicit religiosity should also be associated with a greater sense of purpose in life.…”

Prayer, Personality and Purpose in Life: An Empirical Enquiry among Adolescents in the uk

“…Second, personal prayer was shown to be a stronger predictor of perceived purpose in life than church attendance. This key connection between prayer frequency and purpose in life was subsequently supported by data from the United Kingdom reported by Francis and Evans (1996) among two samples of 12-to 15-year-old students (1,640 who never attended church and 659 who attended church most weeks), by Francis (2005) among two much larger samples of 13-to 15-year-old students (12,717 who never attended church and 3,744 who attended church most weeks), by Robbins and Francis (2005) among two samples of 13-to 15-year-old students in Northern Ireland (1,206 from Catholic schools and 1,464 from Protestant schools), and by Francis and Robbins (2009) among a sample of 2,563 13-to 15-year-old students in England and Wales.…”

“…Previous empirical research has demonstrated that while among older adults males tend to report a higher sense of purpose in life (Francis, Jewell, & Robbins, 2010;Nygren, Alèx, Jonsèn, Gustafson, Norberg, & Lundman, 2005), among school-aged students females tend to record higher purpose in life scores than males (Francis & Burton, 1994). A further group of studies among school-aged students have reported no significant sex differences in levels of perceived purpose in life (Francis & Evans, 1996;Francis, 2005;Robbins & Francis, 2005;Francis & Robbins, 2006. In terms of personality differences, purpose in life is positively associated with extraversion and negatively associated with both neuroticism and psychoticism.…”

“…In each area half of the students were recruited from schools with a religious character (Anglican, Catholic, or joint Anglican and Catholic) and half were recruited from schools without a religious character. Following the model of the previous studies reported by Francis and Burton (1994), Francis and Evans (1996), Francis (2005), Robbins and Francis (2005), and Francis and Robbins (2009) this study operationalises both prayer frequency and purpose in life by means of single-item measures. The conceptual research question is concerned to offer an explanation for the persistence of this association between frequency of prayer and purpose in life among young people in the second decade of the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom.…”