Childhood experiences and adult prayer or meditation in 22 countries around the world
Matt Bradshaw, Victor Counted, Tim Lomas, R. Woodberry, Tyler J. VanderWeele, Byron R. Johnson
Scientific Reports April 30, 2025 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-99796-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cross-sectional survey with cross-national meta-analysis Longitudinal Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 202,898 |
| Population | Adults from 22 geographically, economically, and culturally diverse countries surveyed in 2022–2023 |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | Father-child relations, early-life religious attendance, year of birth, and gender were associated with adult daily prayer or meditation in a 22-country meta-analysis, while parental marital status, economic conditions, abuse and adversity, health, and immigration status were not significant in pooled analysis but were important in some countries. Associations varied across nations, and the authors report E-values suggested the strongest associations were robust to unmeasured confounding. |
Abstract
Few studies have examined how childhood experiences and characteristics shape daily prayer or meditation in adulthood across countries around the world using nationally-representative data. The current study addresses this limitation by analyzing data from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), an international survey of 202,898 individuals from 22 geographically, economically, and culturally diverse countries collected in 2022–2023. Father-child relations, early-life religious attendance, year of birth, and gender were associated with adult daily prayer or meditation in a meta-analysis of all 22 countries. Parental marital status, economic conditions, abuse and adversity, health, and immigration status were not significant in the pooled analysis, but were important in one or more countries. All childhood characteristics showed some variation across nations. E-values suggested that the strongest associations were robust against confounding from unmeasured covariates. Cross-national research is difficult for many reasons including language barriers, norms regarding talking about sensitive issues, and survey question translation and interpretation issues. Despite these, findings show meaningful associations between numerous childhood characteristics and adult prayer or meditation around the world. Results also reveal considerable variation across countries and cultures. This work lays the foundation for future longitudinal GFS studies on the causes and correlates of prayer or meditation in a global context.
Comparable studies
Other systematic reviews and meta-analyses on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being Diverse adult clinical populations | 2014 | Meta-analysis | n = 3,515 |
| Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Stress Management in Healthy People: A Review and Meta-Analysis Healthy subjects | 2009 | Systematic review and meta-analysis | |
| The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis. Nonclinical groups of adult meditators | 2012 | Meta-analysis | n = 163 |
| Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in Prevention of Depressive Relapse Adults with recurrent depression in full or partial remission | 2016 | Meta-analysis of individual patient data from randomized controlled trials | n = 1,258 |
| Mindfulness‐Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness‐Based Cognitive Therapy – a systematic review of randomized controlled trials | 2011 | Systematic review |