Religiousness, Religious Doubt, and Death Anxiety

Abstract

Terror Management Theory (TMT) (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) suggests that culturally-provided worldviews (e.g., religion) may protect individuals from experiencing death anxiety, and several studies have supported this position. However, if one's worldview can offer protection, doubts concerning one's worldview could undermine this protection. The current study investigated whether age, gender, religiousness, and religious doubt were associated with death anxiety. Using data from 635 younger, middle-aged, and older adults, a structural equation model with age, gender, religiousness, and religious doubt predicting death anxiety was tested. The model had a good fit (chi2 (76) = 193.467, p < .001; GFI = .961, CFI = .976, TLI = .967, RMSEA = .049) and accounted for 12.3% of the variance in death anxiety. Results were consistent with TMT, as religiousness was inversely associated with death anxiety, while religious doubt was positively associated with death anxiety.

Investigation of the Death Anxiety and Meaning in Life Levels among Middle-Aged Adults

“…Contrary to these findings, Thorson and Powell (1988) and Henrie and Hicks-Patrick (1970) found that the elderly experienced less death anxiety than younger individuals, since their conflict-resolving and anxiety-coping skills were better. Russac, Gatliff, Reece, and Spootswood (2007) investigated the relationship between death anxiety and the variables of age and gender in their study of 304 individuals (aged 18-87 years) living in the United States.…”

Relationships between death anxiety and quality of life in Iranian patients with cancer

“…[30] Extent of religiosity may be one factor that is associated with the degree of death anxiety and QOL in cancer, given research that has found relationships among the concepts of religiosity, perceived life quality, death anxiety, and/or death acceptance. [243132] Many of these studies have shown that intrinsic religiosity is negatively related to death anxiety. [333435] However, there is research that has identified no relationships, and studies that have found positive relationships between religiosity and death anxiety.…”

Does Religious Belief Matter for Grief and Death Anxiety? Experimental Philosophy Meets Psychology of Religion

“…Empirically, links between religious belief and experiences of grief and death anxiety, however, are not unambiguous. Self‐reported religious belief has been shown to correlate with bereavement adjustment and lower death anxiety (Frantz, Trolley, and Johll ; Henrie and Patrick ; Wortmann and Park ), but not uniformly (Brown et al. ; Cowchock et al.…”

“…Empirically, links between religious belief and experiences of grief and death anxiety, however, are not unambiguous. Self-reported religious belief has been shown to correlate with bereavement adjustment and lower death anxiety (Frantz, Trolley, and Johll 1996;Henrie and Patrick 2014;Wortmann and Park 2008), but not uniformly (Brown et al 2004;Cowchock et al 2010;Park and Halifax 2011). In addition, some studies either have not measured whether participants are avowed believers versus nonbelievers (as a dichotomous variable) or have not used this variable in analyses, favoring the investigation of specific religious beliefs instead, thus rendering these studies less useful for addressing the claims of meta-atheism (e.g., Kelley and Chan 2012;Lee, Roberts, and Gibbons 2013).…”