Intercessory prayer in psychological well-being: using a multiple-baseline, across-subjects design

Undergraduates from an upper-level psychology course were volunteer participants in the study. The 8 participants were to be prayed for in a Multiple Baseline Across Subjects research design, which included a 1-week minimum baseline period for all subjects followed by the sequential presentation of the independent variable so that every two weeks, two additional subjects were being prayed for until all but 2 participants, who maintained baseline, were exposed to being prayed for at 7 weeks. All participants were prayed for by one of the experimenters using a nondirective method of prayer where no specific requests were made. All subjects completed the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale on a daily basis for 5 weeks and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 on a weekly basis for 7 weeks. Analysis of data identified significant reductions in anxiety scores on both the tests for subjects who were prayed for but not for those who were not prayed for. Subjects' lower mean anxiety scores somewhat matched the sequential timing of being prayed for.