Three studies investigated the effect of encouraging participants to believe in an afterlife on the relationship between mortality salience and self-esteem striving. Participants were exposed to essays arguing either in favor of or against the existence of an afterlife, and reminded about death or a control topic. Mortality salience led to increased accuracy ratings of a positive personality description (Studies 1 and 2) and increased striving for and defense of values (Study 3) among participants who read the essay arguing against an afterlife, but not among participants who read the essay in favor of it. The implications for the terror management analysis of self-esteem, the appeal of immortality beliefs, and the interplay between self-esteem striving and spiritual pursuits are discussed.
Previous research has revealed that when individuals are confronted with criticism of a personally relevant group, mortality salience can lead to either derogation of the source of criticism or distancing from the group. In this article, the authors investigated closure as a potential moderator of these reactions. In Study 1, mortality salience led to greater derogation of a critic of a relevant group among high-need-for-closure participants but led to distancing from the group among low need-for-closure participants. Study 2 showed that when a relevant group was criticized, mortality salience led to greater derogation among participants who were led to believe that the boundaries of that group were impermeable but led to greater distancing among participants who were made aware of the permeable nature of the group boundaries. These findings demonstrate that closure of group membership moderates reactions to criticism of a personally relevant group after mortality salience.
The authors explore the effect of a religious upbringing on church attendance later in life. To this purpose, people who had been interviewed in 1983 as secondary students about their upbringing as well as other characteristics, were interviewed again in 2007 about the same topics. Comparisons between the 1983 and the 2007 data reveal that church attendance dropped significantly among these people during this period. Furthermore, it is shown that a religious upbringing is not a good predictor of church attendance later in life. These conclusions apply to Protestants and Catholics alike, as separate analyses for Catholics, Dutch Reformed and Re-Reformed reveal.Key words: church attendance · denominational differences · long-term effect · Netherlands · panel study · religious upbringing Les auteurs se penchent sur les effets que l'éducation religieuse en famille induit par rapport à l'assistance à la messe à un stade ultérieur de la vie. Pour ce faire, des personnes interviewées en 1983, alors qu'elles étaient lycéennes, à propos de leur éducation religieuse en famille, entre autres aspects concernant la religion, ont été à nouveau interrogées en 2007 sur les mêmes sujets. La comparaison entre les réponses de 1983 et de 2007 montre que leur assistance à la messe a considérablement diminué durant cette période. En outre, il apparaît qu'une éducation religieuse en famille n'assure pas une fréquentation plus intense à la messe à un stade ultérieur de la vie. Ce constat vaut pour les protestants autant que pour les catholiques, comme les analyses réalisées séparément pour les catholiques, les réformistes néerlandais et les calvinistes l'ont démontré.Mots-clés: assistance à la messe · différences confessionnelles · éducation religieuse · effet à long terme · étude par panel · Pays-Bas
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