title: Personal prayer counteracts self-control depletion.
abstract: Praying over longer time spans can foster self-control. Less is known about the immediate, short-term consequences of praying. Here we investigated the possibility that praying may counteract self-control depletion. Participants suppressed or did not suppress thoughts about a white bear before engaging in a brief period of either personal prayer or free thought. Then, all participants completed a Stroop task. As expected, thought suppression led to poorer Stroop performance in the free thought, but not in the prayer condition. This effect emerged on a dependent variable devoid of any religious or moral associations (Stroop task). Possible mediating mechanisms and directions for future research are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Germany. Electronic address: malte.friese@uni-saarland.de.
authors.forename: Malte
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Friese
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Lea
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schweizer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Anaïs
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arnoux
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Fabienne
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sutter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wänke
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011897:Random Allocation; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D057190:Stroop Test; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive control; Cognitive resources; Ego-depletion; Praying; Self-control