Dimitris Pnevmatikos a a University of Western Macedonia, Greece. Published online: 13 Nov 2014.

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1 This article was downloaded by: [Dimitrios Pnevmatikos] On: 14 November 2014, At: 22:15 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion & Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: Prayer as a cause of recovery from illness Dimitris Pnevmatikos a a University of Western Macedonia, Greece Published online: 13 Nov To cite this article: Dimitris Pnevmatikos (2014) Prayer as a cause of recovery from illness, Journal of Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion & Education, 35:2, , DOI: / To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content ) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

2 Journal of Beliefs & Values, 2014 Vol. 35, No. 2, , RESEARCH REPORT Prayer as a cause of recovery from illness Dimitris Pnevmatikos* University of Western Macedonia, Greece This research aimed to examine the developmental trajectory of the beliefs about the power of prayer to aide recovery from illness. One hundred and sixty children and young adults divided in four age groups participated in the study. Participants were interviewed with vignettes presenting two sick individuals who differed in terms of prayers that they received from their friends in order to recover from their illness. The results showed that children and pre-adolescents strongly believe in the power of prayer to recover from illness while only about half of the university students share this belief. Thus, contrary to the framework theory approach, children, adolescents, and young adults did not replace these beliefs (as naive explanations), with the scientific explanations. Instead, they continue to hold these beliefs in parallel to their scientific explanations. Keywords: framework theory; prayer; recovery from illness; religious beliefs Introduction The explanations of get sick and get well are highly correlated (Sayer, Willett, and Perrin 1993). Nevertheless, although there is enough evidence about the content of the psycho-social and the biological explanatory framework of illness, we know little about the content of these frameworks concerning the recovery from illness. Despite the importance of the recovery from illness for the formulation of a theory of illness, this aspect has been rarely investigated when scholars study the development of the explanatory framework theory of illness among pre-schoolers and children. Moreover, little is known about the causal explanations that individuals have for recovering from illness within the religious belief system. For instance, individuals usually pray, seeking God s help to maintain their health (for a review see Spilka and Ladd 2013, 109). Woolley and Phelps (2001), investigating the development of three- to eightyear-old children s beliefs about prayer, included questions about the power of praying for someone else to recover from illness. They found that the vast majority of the children (94%) endorsed as acceptable this prayer and almost all expected it to be fulfilled (98%). Even the four-years-old acknowledged that God is the necessary component of the prayer process. However, Woolley and Phelps (2001) did not inform us whether these beliefs continue to exist in the course of the development. This information is crucial for understanding how children develop their causality about illness. Carey (1985) suggested that when 10-year-olds formulate a coherent framework theory of illness, interpreting illness from the perspective of the germ theory, they abandon their previously held naive explanatory framework and replace * dpnevma@gmail.com 2014 Taylor & Francis

3 Journal of Beliefs & Values 219 the previous prominent psychological causality with the biological one. The question is whether children, after the developmental milestone of the tenth year, continue to expect that prayer could have an impact on their recovery from a common illness. The current study addresses the question of whether children abandon their early established beliefs about the power of prayer to help a friend to a quicker recovery from a common illness before and after the milestone of the tenth year of age. Based on the previous evidence and on the framework theory, it is assumed that, before they acquire the biological theory (tenth year), children would give a higher chance of recovery from an illness to a sick individual for whom their friends are praying than to a sick individual for whose recovery nobody prays. These explanations should be progressively abandoned during the early school years as children will be informed about the biological explanatory framework. Method Participants: 160 children and young adults, equally divided into four age groups (eight-year-olds, mean age 8.16, SD=0.34; 10-year-olds, mean age 10.28, SD=0.22; 12-year-olds, mean age 11.96, SD = 0.22 and university students, mean age 20.01, SD=2.33), with equal numbers of boys and girls in each group, participated in the study. Children were interviewed individually, while university students completed the questionnaire in a written form. Materials and procedure: A vignette depicting two sick individuals who differed in terms of the prayers they received from their friends (e.g. a lot of friends pray for the patient versus nobody prays for the patient), including the time during which they fell ill, was presented to the participants. Then, they were asked which of the two individuals would recover more quickly from their illness. The answer of equally likely was also accepted. Participants were also asked to justify their responses. Results Participants overall at above chance level considered the fact that friends who pray for the sick individual will help him/her to recover from a common cold earlier than the individual whose friends did not pray for his/her recovery, t(159)=6.58, p<.001 (see Table 1). However, the answers were dependent on the age group, χ 2 (6)=26.51, Table 1. Frequencies and percentages (%) per age group of the participants answers. Age Group eightyear-olds 10-yearolds 12-yearolds 20-yearolds Total f % f % f % f % f % Nobody prays Equally likely Friends are praying 36** 90 33** ** Note: The stars indicate that the reported frequency is the above chance level. **p <.01.

4 220 D. Pnevmatikos p<.001, but not on the gender of the participants, χ 2 (2)=2.43, p=.30. Although the majority of the children endorsed the power of prayer to recover from illness at an above chance level, (t(39)=8.33, p<.001 for eight-year-olds, t(39)=5.34, p<.001 for the 10-year-olds and t(39)=3.61, p<.001 for the 12-year-olds) this tense diminished at the chance level (45%) only among the university students, t(39)=.63, p=.534. That is, children do not abandon the belief in the power of prayer after the age that they expected to change their explanatory theory about the power of prayer to help in recovery from a common illness. Participants who answered that the prayers from his/her friends could help his/ her recovering quicker from his/her sickness, justified their responses to the general value of prayers (50.4%), and a smaller number of the participants (20.5%) implicitly referred to the body mind interaction and to the integration of the superficial entities, to the vital power that is transferred through prayers (12.8%) and to the psychological resilience that prayers could give to the patient who knows that his/her friends are thinking for him/her being ill (3.4%). Other rarely given answers calculated for 10.3%, while only three participants found it difficult to justify their answers (1.9%). Discussion Carey (1985) suggested that the tenth year of age is the developmental milestone during which a coherent biological theory is established and the phenomenon of illness is explained in terms of physical causality, the main characteristic of the biological germ theory. However, like young children in the study of Woolley and Phelps (2001), early adolescents continued to endorse at an above chance level that prayer is an important aspect in helping the sick individual recover quicker from his/her illness, than the individual who does not benefit from friends prayers. Even 45% of the university students considered prayer an important factor in recovering from illness. Thus, prayer continues to be part of the adolescents and young adults explanatory framework and to influence their behaviour. This finding is in agreement with recent evidence showing that, among adults, the biological scientific explanatory framework of illness co-exists with the psycho-social explanatory framework (Legare and Gelman 2008) and that religion can constitute an important alternative explanatory causal framework for individuals (Legare et al. 2012). For many years, scholars in education saw an irreconcilable chasm between science and religion, considering the natural scientific explanations as rational, and supernatural explanations as irrational, and so expected the latter to be replaced by the scientific (rational) ones. Recently, Legare and Visala (2011) asserted the co-existence and access to multiple explanatory frameworks as a universal psychological experience (173). Despite efforts in education settings to replace the alternative explanatory frameworks, individuals usually try to reconcile synthesise (e.g. It can be the biological aspects and prayer that help to recovery from illness) or to integrate the two alternative explanations (i.e. natural and supernatural) in one (e.g. God acts through medicine or through doctors), or they distinguish the natural and the supernatural explanations when they explain different aspects of the same phenomenon (e.g. It is God s free will that helps the patient to recover from illness) (see also Legare et al. 2012).

5 Journal of Beliefs & Values 221 Conclusion The findings above have important educational implications. First, religious education is not considered as being in conflict with science. Religious belief systems, like the power of prayer to aid recovery from illness, are not considered as naive and superficial beliefs contrary to scientific explanations. When children and adolescents are informed about scientific explanations, they try to synthesise and integrate them with their alternative explanatory framework, one of which is their religious framework. Religious their illness or failing to make use of spiritual support.and spiritual education has potential to contribute to this integration and, indeed, the overall health of the individuals concerned. If individuals do not succeed in this integration and, instead, draw heavy distinctions between natural and supernatural explanations for recovery from illness, it could have negative consequences for public health, including through their either avoiding medicine to help their illness or failing to make use of spiritual support. References Carey, S Conceptual Change in Childhood. MIT Press: Bradford Books. Legare, C. H., E. M. Evans, K. S. Rosengren, and P. L. Harris The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations Across Cultures and Development. Child Development 83: Legare, C. H., and A. Visala Between Religion and Science: Integrating Psychological and Philosophical Accounts of Explanatory Coexistence. Human Development 54: Sayer, A. G., J. B. Willet, and E. C. Perrin Measuring Understanding of Illness Causality in Healthy Children and in Children with Chronic Illness: A Construct Validation. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 14 (1): Spilka, B., and K. L. Ladd The Psychology of Prayer: A Scientific Approach. New York: The Guilford Press. Woolley, J. D., and K. E. Phelps The Development of Children s Beliefs about Prayer. Journal of Cognition and Culture 1 (2):