Personal prayer counteracts self-control depletion

Abstract

a b s t r a c tPraying over longer time spans can foster self-control. Less is known about the immediate, short-term consequences of praying. Here we investigated the possibility that praying may counteract self-control depletion. Participants suppressed or did not suppress thoughts about a white bear before engaging in a brief period of either personal prayer or free thought. Then, all participants completed a Stroop task. As expected, thought suppression led to poorer Stroop performance in the free thought, but not in the prayer condition. This effect emerged on a dependent variable devoid of any religious or moral associations (Stroop task). Possible mediating mechanisms and directions for future research are discussed.

The effects of prayer on attention resource availability and attention bias

“…Because the Stroop task is a demanding, response-competition task that can be interpreted as a measure of executive attention (Kane & Engle, 2003), one would expect performance to vary as a function of attention resources. This replicates the results of Friese and collaborators (Friese et al, 2014; Friese and Wänke, 2014), albeit the effect was only seen in the present Stroop accuracy measure. The response competition in the CPT task is the battle to sustain attention against the habituation and boredom that characterizes vigilance decrements.…”

“…Based on the many findings from dual-task studies of attention, it seemed reasonable to suppose that prayer about a particular problem or concern would increase the allocation of attention to that problem, leaving fewer resources for other processing, as indicated for example by declines in performance concurrent or subsequent tasks. This prediction is similar to the findings reported by Schjoedt et al (2013) and by Friese and collaborators (Friese et al, 2014; Friese & Wänke, 2014). In the Schjoedt et al (2013) model, resource depletion during some emotional religious rituals compromise the executive functions of error monitoring, memory updating, and conflict resolution, thus creating gaps in attribution that make the individual more vulnerable to influence, particularly in the presence of a charismatic authority.…”

“…A slightly different interpretation of this same effect was offered by Friese et al (2014) and Friese and Wänke (2014). They too showed effects of prayer on cognitive resources, but interpreted these effects as protective and restorative.…”

“…However, the robustness and replicability of this effect has been debated (e.g., Carter & McCullough, 2014; Hagger et al, in press; Lurquin et al, 2016). Further research is needed to clarify the exact conditions that produce ego-depletion—including the effects that Friese et al (2014) and Friese and Wänke (2014) interpret in this way—and to test validity of Baumeister’s strength model that purports to account for such effects.…”

“…Most relevant to the present research, Friese and collaborators (Friese, Schweizer, Arnoux, Sutter & Wänke, 2014; Friese & Wänke, 2014) studied the effects of prayer on cognitive control, and specifically on the protective or restorative effect that prayer appears to have on cognitive resources that are consumed in taxing mental activities. Participants were asked continuously to report the contents of consciousness for a period of time.…”