| The present research examined the efficacy of intercessory prayer on worldview development in college students. Research participants were 428 college freshmen who provided complete data sets on the Spalding University Cultural Development Scale, out of a total of 505 participants. Participants were from a commuter, state university in the mid-eastern United States, aged 18-25, never married, and without children. Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental (prayed-for) or control (not-prayed-for) condition. One hundred forty volunteer intercessors offered non-directed, intercessory prayer on behalf of participants in the experimental condition. A Repeated Measures design was implemented to assess the effects of additional intercessory prayer on worldview as measured by the scope of concern for ecological issues, health issues, responsibility for others, and tolerance of others. The Spalding University Cultural Development Scale was developed as a measure for this study. The primary hypothesis assumed that the prayed-for group would demonstrate significantly greater increases in the scope of concern for ecological issues, health issues, responsibility for others, and tolerance of others in the direction of more global concern in comparison to the not-prayed-for group. Primary analysis results were not significant. Post-hoc analysis demonstrated the concept of receptivity as a possible moderating factor. ANOVAs on newly created subscales based on receptivity as a moderating factor demonstrated significant results for one subscale, results in the desired direction for other subscales, and mixed results for others with some patterns being consistent with receptivity being a moderating factor and other patterns being inconsistent. Though fairly mild evidence, the combination of the primary analysis and the post hoc analysis indicates that though additional intercessory prayer does not appear to work globally to advance the development of worldview as measured by the scope of an individual's concern for ecological issues, health issues, responsibility for others, and tolerance of others in the direction of more global concern, it does appear to do so in several of the areas for individuals who score high on a receptivity scale at the pretest condition. |
