A psychologist applies the rigors of scientific research and comes up with a not so surprising answer

By Frank D. Fincham

“Properly understood and applied, prayer is the most potent instrument of action.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

Most people of faith, and that includes the majority of the world’s population, would likely agree with the above statement. But when confronted by the skeptic, can this belief be justified by more than personal experience? In other words, what does science offer to support the power of prayer? Nothing it seems … up to now. But that is changing.

Noting that prayer is a form of spiritual activity common to all the “Abrahamic” traditions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) with strong parallels in most other religious traditions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto), my colleague Steve Beach and I were surprised to find so little scientific research on prayer.

And what we did find was disappointing. To the extent that there was any research on prayer it was almost exclusively focused on testing whether prayer for the physically afflicted leads to better health outcomes. The mechanism implicitly studied in this work is divine intervention. Not surprisingly, studies have yielded contradictory findings that are likely due to the scientifically (and perhaps theologically) problematic nature of this work.

We do not discount divine intervention but recognize that it is not an acceptable explanation in the realm of scientific research. Our work therefore started with a framework for understanding the impact of prayer that is informed by and grounded in an analysis of psychological and inter-personal processes. Our work investigates colloquial, petitionary prayer, a form of prayer that invokes God’s help in response to specific needs, using the individual’s own language rather than a set prayer.

Specifically, we sought to examine the impact of prayer for a partner in a relationship. Our ini-tial work showed that prayer predicted relationship satisfaction (both concurrently and over time) over and beyond positive and negative behavior in the relationship.

Just pray normally

Encouraged by these findings, we next turned to experimental research designs. Thus we be-gan to randomly assign study participants to pray for a partner or to comparison conditions such as describing a partner to a parent or meditating on the partner’s positive qualities. In some studies we have even used as a comparison condition undirected prayer (“just pray as you normally would each day for the next four weeks”). We have consistently documented that petitionary prayer for the partner has a greater impact on the relationship than any of the comparison conditions. Here is an example of the instructions we use in our studies and a sample prayer.

“Please read the example prayer below to get an idea of the type of prayer we would like you to pray on behalf of your partner:

Dear Lord,

Thank you for all the things that are going well in my life and in my relationship. Please contin-ue to protect and guide my partner, providing strength and direction every day. I know you are the source of all good things. Please bring those good things to my partner and make me a blessing in my partner’s life. Amen.

Now, please generate your own prayer in your own words on behalf of the well-being of your romantic partner and in the space below write a short description about what you prayed for.”

These instructions illustrate those used when participants come to the laboratory and engage in a single prayer session. A bit artificial? Yes, it is! And that is why we always replicate what we find in the laboratory using longer term, diary studies in which participants are asked to pray each day for a month. We ask participants to make online reports twice a week during the month. That way we can be confident that they are following study instructions.

One set of studies showed what most people of faith intuitively know, that prayer increases willingness to forgive a transgression by the partner. This is important because in relationships such as marriage one will certainly be hurt by one’s partner, and that hurt is all the more poignant as we make ourselves vulnerable in such relationships. It is little wonder then that it has been said that a happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

In these studies we documented that prayer led to high levels of agape or selfless love and that this love led to greater willingness to forgive. But, our critics justifiably argue, this is merely self-report. That is why we have now shown that prayer following a partner transgression influ-ences actual behavior in response to the transgression. Participants were exposed to a partner transgression in the lab. Then after praying (or engaging in a control activity) participants were given the chance to cooperate with or antagonize their partner in a computer game. Those who prayed were more cooperative than control participants. Furthermore, in another study we tested whether partners of participants who prayed over the course of four weeks would report the par-ticipants as more forgiving. Apparently prayer has a strong enough effect on participants’ forgiv-ing behavior to be perceived by the partners.

Better mental health

But the impact of prayer is not limited to forgiveness. In another set of studies initiated by Nate Lambert we also documented that petitionary prayer for the partner leads to greater gratitude. This is important as being grateful in life is associated with better mental health, which is, in turn, related to healthy marriage. In a third series of studies Nate was able to demonstrate that prayer influences satisfaction with sacrificing for the relationship.

In this series of studies we videotaped participants after the month long intervention. Specifi-cally, they were asked to, “Please describe something you have given up, or would be willing to give up, for your partner or for your relationship.” Objective coding of the videotapes showed that those randomly assigned to the prayer condition were rated as more satisfied with sacrifice than those who had daily recalled positive partner characteristics but had not been asked to pray. Clearly such findings show that prayer has a protective effect on relationships. but does it also help when it comes to risk factors?

The answer to this question was serendipitous. As some of the research has been conducted with university students in romantic relationships, data on substance use is routinely collected, given the prevalence of substance abuse among undergraduates. I thought it was a mistake when one of my students told me that prayer for the partner had decreased alcohol intake by 50 percent. So we did the study again to make sure, and we obtained the same result almost to the same decimal point! This finding is important, as we have documented that drinking increases the likelihood of casual sex among undergraduates, especially women.

A critical risk factor for a relationship is cheating or infidelity. In the general population 2-4% of spouses are unfaithful each year, with wives and husbands now cheating in equal numbers (and extramarital affairs are the leading cause of divorce across 160 cultures) and among students in committed relationships rates are even higher (up to 65% of couples by one estimate).

In a recent set of studies we were able to show that colloquial, petitionary prayer for the part-ner also decreased infidelity. Moreover, “sanctification of the relationship,” or the process by which secular aspects of life (in this case their relationship) become perceived as having spiritual significance and character, was shown to mediate this effect. Those who had prayed for four weeks were rated as more committed to the relationship, which helps explain why there was less cheating during this period even when taking into account baseline rates of cheating.

Pray together, stay together

It has commonly been said that, “couples that pray together, stay together,” and in another study we assessed the effect of praying for a partner’s well being together with that partner. Par-ticipants who prayed with a partner for four weeks reported a greater level of unity and trust with that partner, compared to participants assigned to a positive interaction condition. Unity mediated the relationship between praying and the increased level of trust.

And what does all this mean for families? Steve Beach and I have also just finished a rando-mized clinical trial with 393 African-American married couples in which we added prayer to a well researched preventive program (Prevention and Relationship Education Program) to see if it in-creased the effectiveness of the program. As anticipated, there were no differences immediately at program completion but differences did emerge 6 and 12 months later. Those in the prayer supplemented intervention showed great intervention gains over time.

Critics of our prayer research point out, and rightly so, that praying is not like working a candy machine. We agree. When prayer reflects selfish concerns and focuses on changing the partner, we believe that it is likely to exacerbate relationship difficulties rather than improve them. Some practical advice: in your own words ask for your partner to be blessed in different ways and for discernment in how you might be a vehicle of God’s love for your partner

Frank D. Fincham, PhD, is Eminent Scholar and Director at the Florida State University Family Institute. A former Rhodes Scholar, he received his doctorate in social psychology from the Uni-versity of Oxford. He has been listed among the top 25 psychologists in the world.