文章基本信息

标题：Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety: Durkheim Revisited
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作者：John P. Bartkowski ; Gabriel A. Acevedo ; Harriet Van Loggerenberg 等
期刊名称：Religions
电子版ISSN：2077-1444
出版年度：2017
卷号：8
期号：9
页码：191
DOI：10.3390/rel8090191
语种：English
出版社：MDPI Publishing
摘要：Durkheim argued that religion’s emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation offers a unique test of two comparable inhibitors of anxiety-related symptoms in the general population, namely, prayer versus meditation. Using data from the 2010 wave of the Baylor Religion Survey, we find that frequent communal prayer is correlated with an increased incidence of anxiety-related symptoms whereas worship service attendance is negatively associated with reported anxiety. Attendance also combines with communal prayer to yield anxiety-reducing benefits. Meditation, measured as a dichotomous indicator, is unrelated to reported anxiety in our sample of American adults. Our study underscores the selective efficacy of collective forms of religious expression, and points to several promising directions for future research.
关键词：religion; prayer; meditation; anxiety; mental health religion ; prayer ; meditation ; anxiety ; mental health