The present thesis had three aims. First, it investigated the relationship between measures of prayer and mental health. Second, it investigated if a multidimensional measure of prayer had greater utility than a single-item measure in terms of the theoretical domain of prayer. Third, it examined the psychometric properties of established prayer measures. These aims were achieved in six independent empirical studies employing, in total, over 2,000 respondents. The thesis provided a comprehensive review of prayer measures and delivered a psychometric evaluation of 12 measures selected from this review. Results from the psychometric evaluation showed that most of these measures were found to be performing well in terms of reliability. However, the proposed prayer typologies were questionable. A new multidimensional measure of prayer, the Multidimensional Measure of Prayer Behaviour was developed that demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in terms of both test-retest reliabilities and factor structure. A review of the literature on prayer and health suggested that prayer had a positive effect on health. A series of empirical studies were presented that used the Multidimensional Measure of Prayer Behaviour to examine: the relationship between prayer and two models of personality (Eysenckian and the Five Factor Model); the relationship between prayer and wellbeing; and the relationship between prayer and dissociation, anxiety, schizotypy, and alexithymia. Results from these studies showed that: psychoticism was negatively related to all prayer types; prayer types were differentially positively predicted by the Big-Five personality constructs; there was no effect for prayer on well-being; and, overall, there was no effect for prayer on dissociation, anxiety, schizotypy, and alexithymia. Furthermore, these studies showed that a multidimensional measure of prayer has limited utility over and above a single-item frequency of prayer measure. Contributions, limitations and suggestions for future research were discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:504856 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Breslin, Michael J. |
| Publisher | Ulster University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.0198 seconds