Inward, outward, upward prayer: Scale reliability and validation

This study provides support for a model that conceptualizes prayers as the means to establish cognitive connections in three directions: inward (self-connection); outward (human-human connection); and upward (human-divine connections). A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrates a single general prayer factor divisible into three subfactors that are in turn comprised of eight discrete scales. Measures of general religiosity, the need for structure, religious styles of coping, well-being. life-satisfaction, and belief in the paranormal provide evidence of convergent and divergent validity for the theory of prayer (is a mechanism for inward, outward, and upward connections.