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Using Private Prayer for Coping (UPPC): Its Role and Mechanisms in Adversities Facing Diverse Populations

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Assessing Spirituality in a Diverse World

Abstract

Prayer is an important experience in the lives of many people. We introduce the Using Private Prayer for Coping (UPPC) scale, based on William James’s (1902/1958) concept of personal religious experiences as “a study of human nature” (p. 350) and prayer as an “inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine” (p. 352). The UPPC is a consciousness-based scale to assess the use of private prayer for coping in crisis or distress, involving: (a) belief in its importance, (b) faith in its efficacy based on previous experiences, and (c) intention to use this as a means to cope with distress. Three studies in samples with diverse demographic characteristics, belief patterns, and crisis contexts were used to establish the satisfactory psychometric properties of the UPPC, including its association with or predictive value for hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing following traumatic events or collective disasters.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge an award for the Project 3, National Institute of Health-NCCAM Grant (P50 AT00011), for Amy L. Ai, PhD, to lead the initial cardiac study on the establishment of the Using Private Prayer for Coping (UPPC). We also appreciate a grant from the Niwano Peace Foundation to support a study on the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks. We greatly appreciate the contribution of Pearson Croney-Clark for her translation of the UPPC to French, of Manon Olaya for her back translation, and of Aimee Boutin, PhD, for her final editing of the French version. We greatly appreciate the contribution of Ramona Bullik and Heinz Streib for their translation of the RRSC to German.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Amy L. Ai

  2. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Christopher Peterson

  3. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Harold Koenig

  4. King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    Harold Koenig

  5. Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Raymond F. Paloutzian

  6. Algos Behavioral Health Services, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Kevin A. Harris

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  1. Amy L. Ai
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Amy L. Ai

  2. Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA

    Paul Wink

  3. Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Raymond F. Paloutzian

  4. Algos Behavioral Health Services, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Kevin A. Harris

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Ai, A.L., Peterson, C., Koenig, H., Paloutzian, R.F., Harris, K.A. (2021). Using Private Prayer for Coping (UPPC): Its Role and Mechanisms in Adversities Facing Diverse Populations. In: Ai, A.L., Wink, P., Paloutzian, R.F., Harris, K.A. (eds) Assessing Spirituality in a Diverse World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52140-0_10

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