New research on prayer suggests that speaking to God or a higher power may help boost our self-control and sense of stability.
German psychologists Malte Friese of Saarland University and Michaela Wänke of the University of Mannheim published a new study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Pacific Standard magazine reports, and have found that "a brief period of personal prayer" each day has proven to be beneficial in counteracting self-control depletion.
The psychologists studied 79 individuals (mostly female), 41 of whom described themselves as Christian, 24 as atheist or agnositc, and 14 as affiliated with another religion. Half of the participants spent five minutes in personal prayer during their sessions while the other half were told to think about anything of their choice before watching five minutes of funny video clips. Then half of members of each group, both the prayers and the thinkers were "asked to suppress all emotions that arise" during the duration of the funny clips.
Next, all participants did a Stroop task, in which words of colors (for instance, the word "red" spelled out in green font) were shown to them, and they were asked to identify the name of the color, not the color of the font used. This task can be difficult as it requires a good deal of concentration and self-control.
The thinkers had difficulty suppressing their laughter during the funny video clips and doing the Stroop tasks, while the prayers found these tasks much easier to perform.
As for how speaking with God or any high power helped the prayers exercise self-control, Friese and Wänke speculate that "even brief social interactions can activate cognitive resources...providing a cognitive boost that can benefit subsequent self-control attempts," and "people interpret praying as a social interaction with God."
This does not mean, of course, that praying is the only way to boost self-control, as spending time with friends and family may and having positive social interactions may also prevent self-control depletion.
