TY - JOUR T1 - Close Ties, Intercessory Prayer, and Optimism Among American Adults: Locating God in the Social Support Network JF - Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Y1 - 2013 A1 - Markus H. Schafer KW - intercession KW - offline KW - optimism KW - Prayer KW - religion KW - social networks KW - social support KW - well-being AB - Prayer is often an interpersonal phenomenon. It represents not only a form of social support shared between or among people, but also a means of embedding an unobservable actor (God) within a conventionally observable social network. This study considers whether the receipt of intercessory prayer from close network ties is associated with future-oriented well-being. Analyses use social network module data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS), a nationally representative study of American adults containing a breadth of information not available in prior studies of networks, prayer, and well-being. Despite experiencing more instances of recent adversity (mental or physical health problem, financial trouble, and unemployment), prayed-for PALS respondents report the highest levels of optimism. Furthermore, the association between network prayer and optimism is robust to inclusion of individual-level indicators of religiosity. Finally, other forms of social support that an individual receives from his or her close ties do not explain the benefits of intercessory prayer. VL - 52 UR - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12010/abstract IS - 1 ER -