TY - JOUR
T1 - Mortality salience, religiosity, and indefinite life extension
T2 - evidence of a reciprocal relationship between afterlife beliefs and support for forestalling death
AU - Lifshin, Uri
AU - Greenberg, Jeff
AU - Soenke, Melissa
AU - Darrell, Alex
AU - Pyszczynski, Tom
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank John Martin Fischer, the University of California-Riverside, and the John Templeton Foundation for their support of this research. We would also like to thank our research assistants, Meghan Reen, Danielle Nay, and Susanna Lopez, for their help on this project.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by 10.13039/100000925 John Templeton Foundation: [Grant Number S-000615].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - Strides are being made in medicine toward the possibility of indefinite life extension (ILE). Research shows that people cope with the prospect of mortality with various ways to feel transcendent of death, including investing in religion and afterlife beliefs. But how would these investments be affected by the possibility of ILE through medical science? The current research provides an initial effort to answer this question by testing whether, after mortality has been made salient, portraying indefinite life extension as plausible might reduce investment in afterlife beliefs. Results showed that for participants low in religiosity, mortality salience, or an essay supporting the plausibility of ILE, decreased belief in the afterlife and increased support for ILE. Furthermore, among participants low in religiosity, the increase in support for ILE was mediated by decreased afterlife belief. These findings provide the first evidence of the psychological impact of the prospect of indefinite life extension.
AB - Strides are being made in medicine toward the possibility of indefinite life extension (ILE). Research shows that people cope with the prospect of mortality with various ways to feel transcendent of death, including investing in religion and afterlife beliefs. But how would these investments be affected by the possibility of ILE through medical science? The current research provides an initial effort to answer this question by testing whether, after mortality has been made salient, portraying indefinite life extension as plausible might reduce investment in afterlife beliefs. Results showed that for participants low in religiosity, mortality salience, or an essay supporting the plausibility of ILE, decreased belief in the afterlife and increased support for ILE. Furthermore, among participants low in religiosity, the increase in support for ILE was mediated by decreased afterlife belief. These findings provide the first evidence of the psychological impact of the prospect of indefinite life extension.
KW - afterlife beliefs
KW - Life extension technologies
KW - mortality salience
KW - religiosity
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U2 - 10.1080/2153599X.2016.1238841
DO - 10.1080/2153599X.2016.1238841
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85015680654
VL - 8
SP - 31
EP - 43
JO - Religion, Brain and Behavior
JF - Religion, Brain and Behavior
SN - 2153-599X
IS - 1
ER -