In addition to confirmation bias, prayer employs an effective psychological technique for strengthening learned behaviors, called intermittent reinforcement. As opposed to continuous reinforcement, in which the test subject receives a reward every time for performing some task, intermittent reinforcement rewards the desired behavior only some of the time. Contrary to what one might expect, intermittent reinforcement produces a much stronger response, and one that takes much longer to die out even after the rewards stop coming. (As an example of this, compare a vending machine to a slot machine. A vending machine is a source of continuous reinforcement: you put money in and expect food to be returned every time. If a vending machine accepts your cash and does nothing in return, most people will not keep inserting coins. By contrast, a gambler who believes that only a very few of his inputs will result in a jackpot will gladly sit and feed money into a slot machine all day.) As above, the few prayers that come true by chance provide powerful incentive for believers to keep trying. To guard against the threat of believers coming to expect continuous reinforcement, and the rapid extinction of belief that would inevitably follow, theists are admonished not to test God, and taught to take responsibility on themselves when prayers go unanswered. ("If only I had more faith" or "If only I understood better what God wanted of me" are two popular all-purpose excuses.)
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