Death Salience Moderates the Effect of Trauma on Religiosity

Abstract: Objective: Previous research has shown contradictory evidence for the relationship between religiosity and trauma; exposure to traumatic life events has been associated with both increases and decreases in religiosity over time. On the basis of a long theoretical tradition of linking death and religious belief and recent empirical evidence that thoughts of death may increase religiosity, we tested whether one determinant of trauma's influence on religion is the degree to which it makes death salient. Method: Using longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a unique population-representative birth cohort, we tested whether the relationship between trauma and religiosity depends on whether the trauma involves death. Participants reported their private, ceremonial, and public religious behaviors at ages 26 and 32 and, at age 32, whether they had experienced any of 23 traumatic life events since age 26. Results: Experiencing the death of a loved

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Postprint ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy ; 11 (2019) 6 ; 639-646

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2019
• Creator: Morris Trainor, Zoe ; Jong, Jonathan ; Bluemke, Matthias ; Halberstadt, Jamin

Further information

• DOI: 10.1037/tra0000430
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-68191-4
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:20 AM CEST