Prayer and personal happiness: a study among secondary school students in Australia

Abstract

A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. AbstractIn order to examine the association between prayer and happiness, a sample of 1,002 students, ranging in age from 12-to 18-years, attending ten non-government secondary schools in Victoria, Australia, completed three measures: the Oxford Happiness Inventory, the short form of the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, and a single-item measure of prayer affect assessed on a five-point scale. The data demonstrated a significant positive correlation between prayer affect and happiness after taking into account individual differences in sex, age and personality.

Suffering and smiling: What determines happiness among Nigerians?

“…Moreover, demographic attributes like age, gender, and marital status also had no effect on happiness. This study contributes to the broader literature on the determinants of subjective wellbeing, especially those with a quantitative tilt (e.g., Kijewski 2020;Mahamid & Berte 2020;Senasu & Singhapakdi 2017;Coupe & Obrizan 2016;Nozaki & Oshio 2016;Abdel-Khalek 2014;Francis & Fisher 2014).…”

“…Rusman et al (2023) conducted a study in Indonesia where they found that people who reported high levels of religiosity also reported high levels of happiness. Analyzing survey data collected from over one thousand secondary school students in Australia, Francis and Fisher (2014) found a positive correlation between prayer and happiness. In a study conducted among adults in South Korea, You and Yoo (2016) found that those who said prayers of thanksgiving reported higher levels of happiness.…”

‘Science disproves the biblical account of creation’: exploring the predictors of perceived conflict between science and religion among 13- to 15-year-old students in the UK

“…There has also been a long-established interest within the psychology of religion concerned with exploring the correlates of personal prayer, as reviewed in studies such as Brown (1994), Francis and Astley (2001), and Spilka and Ladd (2013). The predictive power of personal prayer in areas of personal and social values among young people has been documented by studies like Francis and Robbins (2009) and Francis and Fisher (2014). This strand of research identifies both worship attendance and personal prayer as relevant religious factors (understood from the perspective of the social scientific study of religion) in predicting perceived conflict between science and the biblical account of creation.…”

Insights from Adolescents’ Prayer Requests within a Christian Ethos School: A Qualitative Perspective

“…Research has consistently demonstrated that personal prayer frequency during childhood and adolescence is a significant predictor of higher levels of personal wellbeing (as assessed by a sense of purpose in life and personal happiness) and of pro-social attitudes (as assessed by attitude toward school, attitude toward law and order, and attitude toward substances). For examples, see Francis and Fisher (2014) and Francis and Penny (2016). Few studies, however, have analysed the written content of young people's prayers, which has the potential to contribute to a deeper and more complex understanding of the place of prayer within Christian ethos schools.…”