Social Buffering by God: Prayer and Measures of Stress

Social buffering is characterized by attenuation of stress in the presence of others, with supportive individuals providing superior buffering. We were interested in learning if the implied presence of a supportive entity, God, would reduce acute stress. Participants were randomly assigned to one of...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
VerfasserInnen: Belding, Jennifer N. (VerfasserIn) ; Howard, Malcolm G. (VerfasserIn) ; McGuire, Anne M. (VerfasserIn) ; Schwartz, Amanda C. (VerfasserIn) ; Wilson, Janie H. (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
Verfügbarkeit prüfen: HBZ Gateway
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Veröffentlicht: Springer Science + Business Media B. V. [2010]
In: Journal of religion and health
Jahr: 2010, Band: 49, Heft: 2, Seiten: 179-187
weitere Schlagwörter:B Blood Pressure
B Anxiety
B Social buffering
B Stress
B Prayer
Online Zugang: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Social buffering is characterized by attenuation of stress in the presence of others, with supportive individuals providing superior buffering. We were interested in learning if the implied presence of a supportive entity, God, would reduce acute stress. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: prayer, encouraging self-talk, and control. They were subsequently placed in a stressful situation. Self ratings of stress were lower among the prayer and self-talk conditions relative to controls. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures only among those who prayed were lower than controls; however, prayer and self-talk did not differ. Prayer alone did not significantly reduce stress, perhaps because the majority of students in the prayer condition did not consider reading a prayer to constitute praying.
ISSN:1573-6571
Enthält:Enthalten in: Journal of religion and health
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10943-009-9256-8