Department of Sociology, Baylor University, One Bear Place, Waco, TX, 97326, USA.
Institute for the Studies of Religion, Baylor University, One Bear Place, Waco, TX, 97326, USA.
J Relig Health. 2024 Dec;63(6):4745-4772. doi: 10.1007/s10943-024-02121-5. Epub 2024 Sep 9.
The Baylor Religion Survey (Wave 6; 2021) contains the most comprehensive set of prayer questions of any national survey of the USA; it also contains multiple indicators of mental health and well-being, specifically measures of happiness, depression, anxiety, sense of control, mattering, and dignity. This paper provides a complete overview of how various dimensions of prayer correlate with these different aspects of well-being. While many of these relationships will require more intensive investigation, our synopsis provides confirmation of past expectations using new data. Overall, we find that prayer is related to mental well-being in both positive and negative ways. Specifically, we find that praying with others and positive emotions felt during prayer are correlated with greater overall mental health and more positive self-concepts. However, we also find that petitionary prayer topics, belief that God is impersonal, and negative emotions felt during prayer coincide with higher levels of depression, anxiety, and a lack of control. Generally, these conclusions hold after controlling for basic demographics, religious tradition, and church attendance, which confirms that mental well-being is related to the practice of prayer in both beneficial and detrimental ways.
贝勒宗教调查（第六波；2021 年）包含了美国任何全国性调查中最全面的祈祷问题集；它还包含了多种心理健康和幸福感指标，特别是幸福感、抑郁、焦虑、控制感、重要感和尊严的衡量标准。本文全面概述了各种祈祷维度与这些不同幸福感方面的关系。虽然这些关系中的许多都需要更深入的研究，但我们的概要提供了使用新数据证实过去预期的结果。总的来说，我们发现祈祷对精神健康有积极和消极的影响。具体来说，我们发现与他人一起祈祷和祈祷时感受到的积极情绪与整体心理健康和更积极的自我概念相关。然而，我们也发现，祈求式的祈祷主题、认为上帝是没有个性的和祈祷时感受到的消极情绪与更高水平的抑郁、焦虑和缺乏控制相吻合。总的来说，这些结论在控制了基本人口统计数据、宗教传统和教堂出勤率后仍然成立，这证实了心理健康与祈祷的实践以有益和有害的方式相关。
