“Pray for Those Who Mistreat You”: Effects of Prayer on Anger and Aggression

Abstract

Although some religious teachings have been used to justify aggression, most religious teachings promote peace in human affairs. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that praying for others brings out the more peaceful side of religion by reducing anger and aggression after a provocation. In Experiment 1, praying for a stranger led provoked participants to report less anger than control participants who thought about a stranger. In Experiment 2, provoked participants who prayed for the person who angered them were less aggressive toward that person than were participants who thought about the person who angered them. In Experiment 3, provoked participants who prayed for a friend in need showed a less angry appraisal style than did people who thought about a friend in need. These results are consistent with recent evolutionary theories, which suggest that religious practices can promote cooperation among nonkin or in situations in which reciprocity is highly unlikely.

Personal prayer counteracts self-control depletion

“…The interaction between thought suppression and prayer remained significant when controlling for religiosity (F(1, 56) = 4.32, p = .042, g p 2 = .072) and when treating religiosity as a z-standardized continuous predictor in a multiple regression analysis, the two-way interaction between thought suppression and prayer remained marginally significant (t(53) = À1.94, p = .058) while the three-way interaction with religiosity was not significant (t(53) = À1.14, p = .260). These results are in line with previous research (Bremner et al, 2011;Friese & Wänke, 2014;Lambert, Fincham, Stillman, Graham, & Beach, 2010;Rounding et al, 2012). However, due to the small sample size it is not possible to confidently rule out a possible moderation by religiosity.…”

“…The free thought condition was modeled to be as similar as possible to the prayer condition except for the subjective awareness that one is praying and not merely thinking. It paralleled previous control conditions for personal prayer (Bremner et al, 2011) except that in previous research participants were asked to think about a particular person while in the present study they were allowed to think about anything they wished.…”

“…Second, several studies investigated the effects of prayer on anger and anger-related behavior (Bremner, Koole, & Bushman, 2011). Participants who were provoked and prayed for an unrelated person after the provocation reported less anger (Study 1) and lower anger-typical likelihood estimates of certain fictitious events (Study 3).…”

“…We did not expect praying to improve self-control performance of non-depleted individuals, as evidence suggests that it is difficult to improve self-control above baseline levels in the short-term (e.g., Bremner et al, 2011;Muraven & Slessareva, 2003;Robinson, Schmeichel, & Inzlicht, 2010;Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009). Participants engaged or did not engage in a thought suppression task that requires self-control (Wegner, 1989), prayed or did not pray for several minutes, and subsequently completed a Stroop task as the dependent variable.…”

Ways of coping with excessive academic stress among Korean adolescents during leisure time

“…Participation in religious activity has been linked to outcomes such as better perceived health, decreased aggression, increased self-esteem, less suicidal ideation, and lower prevalence of depression (e.g., Bremner, Koole, & Bushman, 2011; Crescentini & Capurso, 2015; Koole, Govorun, Cheng, & Gallucci, 2009). It is interesting that some of the participants who are Christian responded that they find strength and peace from prayer meetings and meditation in their daily lives.…”