FIGURE 13.3 Pray for me? To test whether praying for individuals in their time of need actually helped them, researchers randomly assigned 1,802 patients about to undergo cardiac bypass surgery to one of three conditions: those told that they may be prayed for and were; those told that they may be prayed for and weren’t; and those told that they definitely would be prayed for and were. Unfortunately, there were no differences in the presence of complications between those who were or were not prayed for. To make matters worse, those who knew they would be prayed for and were, in fact, prayed for experienced significantly more complications than the other two groups. (Data from Benson et al., 2006.)