Testing the causal relationship between religious belief and death anxiety
Abstract: Religion has long been speculated to function as a strategy to ameliorate our fear of death. Terror management theory provides two possible causal pathways through which religious beliefs can fulfil this function. According to the "worldview defence" account of terror management, worldviews reduce death anxiety by offering symbolic immortality: on this view, only people who accept the religious worldview in question should benefit from religious beliefs. Alternatively, religious worldviews also offer literal immortality, and may do so independently of individuals’ worldviews. Both strands of thought appear in the terror management theory literature. In this paper, we attempt to resolve this issue experimentally by manipulating religious belief and measuring explicit (Study 1) and implicit (Study 2) death anxiety. In Study 1, we found that the effect of religious belief on explicit death anxiety depends critically on participants' own religious worldviews, such that believers and no
- Location
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Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
- Extent
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Online-Ressource
- Language
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Englisch
- Notes
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Postprint
begutachtet (peer reviewed)
In: Religion, Brain & Behavior ; 8 (2018) 1 ; 57-68
- Event
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Veröffentlichung
- (where)
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Mannheim
- (who)
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SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
- (when)
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2018
- Creator
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Jackson, Joshua Conrad
Jong, Jonathan
Bluemke, Matthias
Poulter, Phoebe
Morgenroth, Leila
Halberstadt, Jamin
- DOI
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10.1080/2153599X.2016.1238842
- URN
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urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-69559-7
- Rights
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Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
- Last update
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25.03.2025, 1:53 PM CET
Data provider
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.
Associated
- Jackson, Joshua Conrad
- Jong, Jonathan
- Bluemke, Matthias
- Poulter, Phoebe
- Morgenroth, Leila
- Halberstadt, Jamin
- SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
Time of origin
- 2018
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