Shifting Towards Cooperative Tendencies and Forgiveness: How Partner-Focused Prayer Transforms Motivation

Several studies tested whether partner-focused prayer shifts individuals toward cooperative tendencies and forgiveness. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who prayed more frequently for their partner were rated by objective coders as less vengeful. Study 3 showed that, compared to partners of targets in the positive partner thought condition, the romantic partners of targets assigned to pray reported a positive change in their partner’s forgiveness. In Study 4, participants who prayed following a partner’s “hurtful behavior” were more cooperative with their partners in a mixed-motive game compared to participants who engaged in positive thoughts about their partner. In Study 5, participants who prayed for a close relationship partner reported higher levels of cooperative tendencies and forgiveness. Prayer and Forgiveness 3 Shifting Towards Cooperative Tendencies and Forgiveness: How Partner-Focused Prayer Transforms Motivation Forgiveness is associated with a variety of indicators of positive relationship functioning, including relationship satisfaction (e.g., Fincham & Beach, 2007), increased commitment (e.g., Tsang, McCullough & Fincham, 2006; Karremans, Van Lange, Ouwerkerk, & Kluwer, 2003), and effective conflict resolution (Fincham, Beach, & Davila, 2007; see Fincham, 2009, for review). Thus, forgiveness is an important facet of relationship well-being and it is important to examine its correlates. Prayer is a pervasive phenomenon. People pray at home, at the office, and even at sporting events. People pray for many reasons, with roughly 90% of Americans praying at least occasionally (McCullough & Larson, 1999). The overall objective of the current studies is to determine whether partner-focused prayer increases cooperative tendencies and forgiveness. The current research uses video ratings, narrative ratings, experimental, longitudinal, and daily diary designs to test the hypotheses that praying for one’s partner is related to increased cooperative tendencies and forgiveness. For the purposes of the current studies “partner” is defined as a close relationship friend, or romantic target. The primary objective of the current research was to investigate whether prayer for one’s partner increases cooperative tendencies and forgiveness over time and in the immediate aftermath of a partner transgression. We also address whether praying for one’s partner has an impact beyond that revealed by self-report. Partner-focused Prayer, Cooperative Tendencies, and Forgiveness Prayer and Forgiveness 4 Some research has demonstrated a positive relationship between partnerfocused prayer and relationship satisfaction, which is mediated by commitment (Fincham, Beach, Lambert, Stillman & Braithwaite, 2008). Other research, using selfreport measures, has shown that prayer increases forgiveness (Lambert, Fincham, Stillman, Graham, & Beach, 2010) and reduces infidelity (Fincham, Lambert, & Beach, 2010). Why might partner-focused prayer relate to forgiveness or other relationship outcomes? We suspect that one key mechanism may involve transformation of motivation during key periods such as when couples experience conflict, making individuals more cooperative and forgiving. How might partner-focused prayer enhance cooperation? There is some evidence that people who pray for their partner increase in selfless concern for others (Lambert, et al., 2010). Being more concerned about other people’s welfare should make a person more likely to cooperate with them. It is also possible that partnerfocused prayer changes the very way that one perceives others. For instance, Fincham and colleagues (2010) found that praying for a partner was related to a shift in the perception of the relationship as being holy and sacred. Perceiving one’s relationship in this way should facilitate cooperation. One objective of the current studies is to examine how partner-focused prayer may facilitate a shift in motivation during a conflict, enhance cooperative tendencies, and thereby increase forgiveness. Fincham and Beach (1999) argue that motivational processes are particularly consequential when couples are striving to reduce their negative relationship transactions and when they are recovering from negative interactions that have already occurred. These authors hypothesize that during destructive interactions, couples Prayer and Forgiveness 5 routinely switch from the cooperative tendencies they profess and believe most of the time to emergent tendencies that are adversarial in nature. Partner-focused prayer creates a disposition to exit adversarial or "tit-for-tat" patterns of interaction, which, in turn, may shift the interaction toward cooperative, and away from, adversarial patterns. Thus, we view cooperative tendencies as having a state-like quality for the present studies. Even small initial shifts in such patterns have the potential to build over iterations of dyadic interaction, leading to substantial change in relationship outcomes (Fincham, Stanley, & Beach, 2007). Hence, we hypothesize that partner-focused prayers (which we view as being more of a dispositional trait variable) will cause individuals to adopt a more cooperative orientation and be more prone toward forgiveness. We also expect that this transformation of motivation will be manifested in behavior in both laboratory and naturalistic contexts, that it will be visible under conditions that place a stress on the relationship, and that it will ultimately result in greater cooperation and forgiveness among participants who pray for the well-being of their partners. Study Objectives and Overview The primary objective of the current investigation was to examine whether partner-focused prayer may impact cooperative and forgiving tendencies toward close others over time and in the immediate aftermath of hurtful behavior by the partner. The use of global measures of forgiveness instead of forgiveness for a specific act limits theorizing because global tendencies may not translate into forgiving or cooperative actions toward close others, especially immediately following a specific partner transgression. People may report a general tendency to forgive or to cooperate with a Prayer and Forgiveness 6 partner prior to being stressed by a relationship event, but they may experience a change of heart for the worse when actually confronted with a partner provocation. Studies 1 and 2 begin to address this issue as coders rated participants’ reactions to queries about specific, recent grievances. Using a daily diary method, Study 5 tested whether praying for a partner, specifically on days when there was conflict between the partners, would correspond to more cooperative and forgiving responses toward a partner. We hypothesized that participants who report praying for their partner would respond in a more forgiving manner when discussing or writing about specific partner transgressions (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, we predicted that those who pray for their partner immediately after being insulted by the partner (Study 4) or following a conflict with that partner (Study 5) would demonstrate more cooperative and forgiving tendencies. The importance of this research is emphasized by the fact that we tested whether praying for one’s partner had behavioral consequences. Although some research has shown a relationship between partner-focused prayer and observed behavior of commitment (Fincham et al. 2010), the one study that demonstrated the impact of partner-focused prayer on forgiveness relied exclusively on self-report (Lambert et al., 2010). This raises the possibility that partner-focused prayer, or similar cognitive processes, may produce change in thoughts and self-perceptions rather than producing change in behavior. That is, partner-focused prayer may increase the tendency to selfreport forgiveness and other positive relationship outcomes as a way of maintaining Prayer and Forgiveness 7 cognitive consistency. In principle, partner-focused prayer could increase self-reported forgiveness without having any effect on actual behavior. Therefore, the current studies tested whether partner-focused prayer would correspond to observed forgiving behaviors (Study 1) or to forgiving themes in written narratives (Study 2) as rated by objective coders and a romantic partner over a fourweek period (Study 3). We also tested whether partner-focused prayer influenced cooperative tendencies, after a person experiences a hurtful perceived insult from the partner (Study 4). Finally, we note that it is important to demonstrate that relationship constructs do not function as proxies for relationship satisfaction and do more than capture variance in commonly used measures of satisfaction. Otherwise, prayer for a partner may simply reflect relationship quality under a different name. As a result of such observations, Fincham, Beach and Davila (2004) have argued for routine use of a test of “surplus conceptual value” in relationship research whereby the association between two relationship variables is tested while controlling for relationship satisfaction and communal strength. Stated differently, we sought to rule out the alternative explanation that prayer for partner is simply an indicator of relationship well-being or having a communal orientation and has no independent effect on cooperative tendencies or forgiveness in one’s relationship. Study 1 Given reliance on self-report in the forgiveness literature and the limitations of self-report (e.g., social desirability, demand characteristics; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977), Study 1 sought to examine whether praying for a partner would relate to more observed Prayer and Forgiveness 8 forgiving behavior. After reporting the frequency of their partner-focused prayers, participants engaged in a discussion with their partner about a recent transgression by the partner and their reaction to this transgression. Participants were rated on the vengefulness of their reaction to the incident by objective coders, who were blind to study hypotheses. Vengeance is one of two main motivational factors that govern forgiveness (the other being avoidance), and is closely related to poor relationship wellbeing (McCullough, et al., 1998). We hypothesized that praying for one’s partner at Time 1 would predict lower levels of observed vengefulness towards a romantic partner three weeks later. Method Participants The study included 29 undergraduates (10 female) who received extra credit for their participation. Participants attended with and reported on their relationship with their exclusive romantic partner. Measures & Procedure In addition to several other measures unrelated to the current study, participants completed two items indicating how often they prayed for their partner’s well-being (“I pray for the well being of my partner” and “I pray that good things will happen for my partner”) with scores ranging from “Never” to “Very frequently.” These items were highly correlated (r(27)= .89, p< .001) and were therefore averaged to form a measure of partner-focused prayer. Relationship satisfaction was assessed using Funk and Rogge’s (2007) four-item measure of relationship satisfaction. These items measured satisfaction with the participant’s romantic partner (e.g., “How rewarding is your Prayer and Forgiveness 9 relationship with your partner?” and “I have a warm and comfortable relationship with my partner”). The items were summed to create an index of relationship satisfaction (α = .92). Communal strengths were measured using a 10-item measure developed by Mills, Clark, Ford, and Johnson (2004). The alpha for the current sample was .69. In this and all the studies, several hundred additional questions were asked and so the participants would not have suspected that the study focused on prayer. Three weeks later, participants returned to the laboratory with their romantic partner and were directed to a video room. Using cue cards, we asked the romantic partners of the participants to “Please describe something you did in the recent past that you know bothered, upset, or annoyed your partner.” We then asked the participant to discuss his/her reaction to their partner’s transgression. Five trained coders watched the video data and rated participants on “How would you rate the vengefulness this person demonstrated to the partner during this interaction?” (Intraclass correlation = .69). We defined vengeful to coders as “revengeful, spiteful.” We also provided them with some anchors by which to make their judgments: “1. Not Vengeful: the participant showed no malicious intent,” “3. A little Vengeful: The participant showed signs of spite or wanting to get back at the partner, but not overwhelmingly so,” “5. Moderately Vengeful: The participant showed outward signs of revenge or ill will towards the partner, but not to the fullest extent,” and “7. Extremely Vengeful: The participant showed tremendous spiteful actions and wanted revenge.” Results and Discussion As expected, praying for one’s partner at Time 1 was negatively related to the vengefulness ratings at Time 2 three weeks later, β= -.48, t(22)= -2.54, p< .05. These Prayer and Forgiveness 10 results persisted even when we controlled for self-reported relationship satisfaction, β= -.44, t(21)= -2.06, p= .05 or communal strength β= -.41, t(21)= -2.17, p< .05. In fact, partner-focused prayer was a much stronger predictor of observed vengefulness (controlling for relationship satisfaction) (β= -.44, p= .05) than was relationship satisfaction on its own (β= -.09, p= .68) or communal strength on its own (β= -.00, p= .99). This finding demonstrates that praying for one’s partner significantly corresponds to observable vengeful behavior toward one’s partner during an interaction above and beyond relationship satisfaction and communal strength. However, the study is somewhat limited in that we did not control for vengefulness at Time 1. These findings are less susceptible to demand characteristics or to socially desirable responding than self-report data because the vengefulness ratings were completed by objective raters, who were blind to study hypotheses. Although vengeance is an important aspect of forgiveness (see Fincham, Beach, & Davila, 2004), Study 1 focused exclusively on this one aspect of forgiveness. The remaining studies will focus exclusively on all aspects of forgiveness. Study 2 sought to build upon these findings using another method, namely narrative ratings. Study 2 Study 2 sought to provide additional evidence for a relationship between partnerdirected prayer and forgiveness using ratings of narratives. Participants described a recent incident when a close friend did something to upset or annoy them and then wrote about how they responded. Objective coders rated these narratives on how forgiving the participants behaved toward their friend. We predicted that partner-focused prayer for a friend would relate to higher forgiveness ratings. Prayer and Forgiveness 11