Today in “news that’s actually kind of obvious,” a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology claims that people who pray for their significant others are usually more committed to them. Unless you’re a female mantis, of course. Then, you’re probably about to kill yours.
The study, entitled “I Say a Little Prayer for You: Praying for Partner Increases Commitment in Romantic Relationships,” explored the effects and possible benefits of partner-focused petitionary prayer (which they call PFPP) by people in committed relationships. Researchers sent out online surveys to 316 undergraduate students in the Southeastern U.S. who identified themselves as being in exclusive relationships, as well as 205 older African American married couples from the same region of the country. They found that, with both groups, an increased amount of PFPP corresponds to a higher level of commitment later on, as well as a higher level of emotional satisfaction between partners.
So, does this mean praying will make your date like you more? Probably not. After all, you have to be the type of person who would actually pray for others in the first place, which excludes most of us here at Geekosystem and probably a sizeable chunk of our readers as well (what can we say? We know our target audience is chock full o’ self-centered heathens).
But, we can definitely see how putting time and effort into convincing God to give your boyfriend that promotion would indirectly make you want to stick around to see the eventual fruits  of your labor rewarded. After all, what’s the point of praying if you’re just gonna dump him?
For their next study, Frank D. Fincham and Steven R.H. Beach should see if the time of day during which one prays matters. Common knowledge would dictate that you have to do it the moment you wake up before you put on your makeup or it doesn’t work, but you never know. Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach might have been wrong on that one.
(via Discover Magazine)
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