Examining the Complex Relation Among Religion,Morality,and Death Anxiety: Religion Can Be a Source of Comfort and Concern Regarding Fears of Death

Abstract

This study examined the relationship among religiosity, morality, and fear of death. Students (n = 328, 75% women, M_age = 18.9) completed measures of fear of death, frequency of immoral behavior, discrepancy between ideal and actual religious practices, strength of religious beliefs, views of God as punishing or forgiving, and behavior efficacy (the extent to which fate in the afterlife was perceived to be determined by behavior in this life). Frequency of immoral behavior was not related to fears of death, but both strength of religious views and behavior efficacy were negatively correlated with fears of death. In contrast, perceived failure to live up to religious standards was associated with more death anxiety, especially among those with punishing views of God. These findings support the idea that some aspects of religion can help protect people from death anxiety, whereas other aspects of religion can exacerbate fears of death.

Keywords

fear of death death apprehension theory terror management theory religion

The relation between religion and death anxiety seems intuitive and is frequently investigated in the social sciences; however, the empirical evidence is anything but clear. Some studies find that religion is associated with less anxiety about death (Lundh & Radon, 1998; Templer, 1972). Other studies have shown that religion is associated with more death anxiety (Ellis, Wahab, & Ratnasingan, 2013). Still other research finds a curvilinear relationship, such that those who are only somewhat religious report more death anxiety than those who are very religious and those who are not at all religious, but the very religious and nonreligious report equally low levels of death anxiety (Wink & Scott, 2005). Further, some research finds no relation at all between religion and death anxiety (Feifel, 1974; Shadinger, Hinninger, & Lester, 1999; Templer & Dotson, 1970). Therefore, there is evidence to support all four possibilities: Religion is associated with less death anxiety, religion is associated with more death anxiety, the relationship depends on the extent of religious commitment, or that there is no relationship at all.

Kastenbaum (2000) decried the ambiguity of the state of research on the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety by pointing out that correlational studies had revealed all manner of possible outcomes. He noted that rationally it is possible to conceptualize religion as both a source of comfort, by allowing for the possibility that death is not the extinction of the self, and a source of extra worry, because of uncertainties about the nature of postdeath experience and concerns about potential punishment in the afterlife. Kastenbaum urged researchers to move beyond simple measures of religious identity and affiliation because any relationship between religion and death anxiety would likely be complicated and vary based on the nature of individual beliefs. The ambiguity noted by Kastenbaum continues to persist. In a review of 84 studies, Ellis and Wahab (2013) found that 40 studies found a negative correlation between fear of death and religiosity, 9 found a curvilinear relationship, 27 found a positive correlation, and 32 found no correlation.

From the perspective of terror management theory (TMT; Vail et al., 2010), the primary function of religion, like the function of all cultural constructions, is to help people ameliorate the potentially overwhelming anxiety that stems from the uniquely human awareness of the inevitability of personal mortality. TMT (Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2015) asserts that people created cultural belief systems, at least in part, as a way to manage the otherwise potentially debilitating anxiety associated with the awareness that premature death was an ever present possibility and eventual death was an unavoidable necessity. Consensually validated cultural worldviews can help to manage concerns about premature death by helping individuals conceptualize the world as a fair, predictable, and manageable place where one can stay safe as long as he or she adheres to the culturally prescribed standards of right living. Further, cultural worldviews buffer anxiety about the inevitability of death by offering hope of achieving symbolic or literal immortality. The idea of symbolic immortality potentially makes thoughts of death less frightening by allowing people to imagine how their lives matter in some enduring and meaningful way. Therefore, while death may mean that the self is gone, it is not forgotten and lives on in the memories of others or in the contribution to some larger continuing entity. The idea of literal immortality potentially makes thoughts of death less frightening because death is seen as a transition or alteration in consciousness, identity, and relationships rather than the total annihilation of the self.

Vail et al. (2010) suggested that religion provided protection against existential anxiety in at least three different ways. First, religion facilitated the belief that a powerful deity, deities, or spiritual forces had sway over the natural world and outcomes of human affairs and that these deities or forces could be influenced or appeased through supplication and proper conduct. Thus, religion afforded believers a greater sense of control and perceived safety from premature death. Second, religion can provide a means of symbolic immortality by allowing adherents to believe that they have played a part in some divine plan and that their contributions will continue to be remembered and valued by some eternal deity or process, or that they are part of a community of shared beliefs and this community of believers will continue to exist after the demise of their corporeal self. Third, and perhaps most importantly, religion describes the possibility of literal immortality, such that death is not the destruction of identity and the cessation of experience but merely the transition to some altered plane of existence.

Secular aspects of worldview, such as close personal relationships (Plusnin, Pepping, & Kashima, 2018) and nationalism (Greenberg et al., 1990), can mitigate death anxiety, by offering a means of symbolic immortality that allows people to expand their identity beyond the physical body and to conceptualize a lasting impact of existence. Religious aspects of worldview, however, would seem to have a superior terror management capacity because they offer not only symbolic but also literal immortality.

Support for the death anxiety buffering function of belief in literal immorality comes from the finding that mortality salience increased the need for literal immortality (Conn, Schrader, Wann, & Mruz, 1996). Among Christians, mortality salience increased belief in Jesus but decreased belief in Allah. Among Muslims, mortality salience had the opposite effect (Vail, Arndt, & Abdollahi, 2012). In addition, bolstering confidence in the reality of literal immortality, by providing participants with purported scientific evidence supporting the idea that life continues after death, eliminated the increase in psychological defenses related to seeking symbolic immortality by reinforcing faith in cultural worldview that was otherwise seen in response to mortality salience (Dechesne et al., 2003). Further, evidence for the reality of life after death eliminated the effects of mortality salience on cultural worldview defense even among self-identified atheists (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2012). The fact that even atheists found hopes for literal immortality comforting in the face of reminders of mortality suggests that literal immortality may provide superior terror management than symbolic immortality.

Religious beliefs offer the potential to reduce death anxiety by allowing adherents to hope for literal or symbolic immortality, but belief in the possibility of immortality is insufficient in and of itself to suppress fears of death. As Pyszczynski (2016) noted, people’s confidence in the likelihood of attaining personal immortality would depend on their perception that they were living up to the culturally prescribed standards of behavior. Pyszczynski asserted that people would have noticed that not everyone achieves symbolic immortality in the form of being posthumously remembered and honored but rather that this is a privilege enjoyed only by those deemed to have lived a valuable life as defined by the prevailing standards of the culture. He further argues that many religions describe criteria for admittance into the afterlife that not only depend on expressing specific beliefs but also on adherence to often-rigorous moral and ethical standards for proper conduct.

Pyszczynski (2016) suggested that while the foundation of religious beliefs emerged as a byproduct of evolved cognitive tendencies such as a tendency to over infer agency and an intuitive mind–body dualism, the growing cognitive complexities that gave rise to the awareness of death and the concomitant experience of death anxiety lead to a cultural pressure for religious beliefs that helped ameliorate fears about the frailty and finitude of human existence. People took their experience with human authority figures such as parents and chiefs who exerted social control and enforced adherence to culturally defined notions of ethics and projected these onto images of powerful deities who were concerned about human morality. Just as a child’s sense of safety depended on their perception that they were adhering to their parent’s standards of appropriate behavior, and an adult’s sense of safety depended on their perception that they were adhering to the social group’s standards of conduct, so too did people’s sense of safety come to depend on the perception that they were abiding by divinely enforced moral codes, the violation of which might result in the removal of supernatural protection from dangers in this life and in elimination from consideration for entry into the afterlife.

Support for the TMT claim that living up to the standards of cultural worldview is a necessary prerequisite for psychological equanimity in the face of the awareness of personal death comes from the finding that requiring participants to think about the undesired self (how they were becoming or acting in ways consistent with the person they did not want to be) increased the accessibility of death-related thoughts as measured by the number of death-related words made on a word fragment completion task (Ogilvie, Cohen, & Solomon, 2008). Similarly, reminders of death increased death anxiety among participants with low trait levels of self-esteem but had no effect on death anxiety among participants with high trait levels of self-esteem (Abeyta, Juhl, & Routledge, 2014). Given that TMT conceptualizes self-esteem as being derived from the perception of living up to the standards of cultural worldview, this finding is consistent with the claim that adherence to cultural prescriptions of proper conduct is a necessary component of buffering people against death anxiety. No research known to the authors has directly tested the idea that immoral behavior or perceived failure to live up to religious standards of practice would be associated with an increase in death anxiety, but this hypothesis seems to be a logical extrapolation from TMT.

Not all theorists agree that the main cultural function of religion is to minimize fear of death. An alternative perspective suggests that the transition from whimsical polytheistic deities to conceptions of omniscient deities who were concerned with human moral behavior occurred through a process of social evolution fueled by the benefits of enhanced social cohesion and reduced freeloading facilitated by belief in such deities (Norenzayan et al., 2016). Evidence for this perspective comes from the finding that subtly priming participants to think about the concept of God increased fairness and reduced selfishness in an economic decision game (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007). Not all conceptions of God are equally effective at promoting adherence to social and ethical rules. Shariff and Norenzayan (2011) found that religious and nonreligious participants did not differ in the frequency with which they cheated on a computerized math test but people who viewed God as more punishing were less likely to cheat.

There seems to be a tension between the types of beliefs that would best accomplish the different cultural functions purportedly served by religion. Belief in a wrathful and judging deity that was always monitoring human moral behavior and would punish immorality in this life or the next would have been most effective at promoting smoother social functioning but would have been less effective at soothing existential anxieties. Belief in a loving, compassionate, and forgiving deity would have been effective at attenuating existential anxiety but less good at promoting social cohesion.

The death apprehension theory (Ellis et al., 2013) potentially helps to clarify the discrepancies in the research literature on the relation between religion and death anxiety by elaborating on how specific constellations of religious beliefs held by an individual can either assuage or exacerbate fears of death. According to this theory, confidence in the existence of an afterlife will not automatically reduce fears of death. Rather, the extent to which belief in an afterlife is comforting in regard to death anxiety will depend on (a) the extent to which a person believes entrance into the afterlife depends on behaving in accordance with the moral guidelines of religious teachings and adhering to the standards of proper religious conduct and practice; (b) how arduous, exacting, or attainable those standards are perceived to be; and (c) how well the person perceives that he or she is living up to the standards of his or her religion. The relation between religiosity and death anxiety is also likely complicated by individual differences in perceptions of God as punishing or forgiving. Regardless of the strength of their religious convictions, people who conceptualize the deity or deities granting access to the afterlife as strict, demanding, and wrathful will likely have high levels of death anxiety and this will be especially likely to be the case if they are also concerned that they are not meeting the standards of proper religious conduct. In contrast, people who conceptualize the deity or deities granting access to the afterlife as loving and compassionate will likely have low levels of death anxiety even if they perceive themselves as failing to meet the standards of appropriate religious conduct.

The goal of this study was to examine how the frequency of immoral behavior and failure to live up to standards of religious practice might be associated with death anxiety. From the perspective of TMT (Pyszczynski et al., 2015), buying into a religious worldview would be insufficient in itself to abate death anxiety. To be protected from death anxiety, religious people would have to believe that they were living up to the standards of ethical behavior and religious practice as defined by their own internalized cultural worldview. Therefore, we hypothesized that more frequent engagement in immoral behavior as well as failure to live up to ideal expectations of religious practice would be associated with greater death anxiety.

However, from the perspective of the death apprehension theory (Ellis et al., 2013), religion can actually intensify death anxiety among those who view God as strict and punishing and who view themselves as failing to live up to exacting religious requirements. Therefore, we hypothesized that the relationship between perceived moral or religious shortcomings and death anxiety would be moderated by the extent to which people viewed God as punishing or forgiving. Specifically, we expected that more frequent engagement in immoral behavior and failure to live up to ideal expectations of religious practice would be associated with greater death anxiety only among participants who held more punishing views of God and not among participants who held more forgiving views of God.

Method

Participants

Participants were 328 students enrolled in introductory psychology classes at a small state sponsored university in the southeastern United States. Of the participants, 80 identified their gender as male, 247 as female, and 1 as nonbinary. Of the participants, 101 identified their race as Black, 196 as White, 14 as Hispanic, 6 as Asian, and 11 as other. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 43 years (M = 18.9, SD = 1.9). Of the participants, 246 identified their religious affiliation as Christian, 1 as Muslim, 1 as Jewish, 26 as other, 6 as unspecified, and 48 as atheist, agnostic, or observing no religion. Of the participants, 267 indicated that they believed in one and only one God; 5 expressed a belief in multiple gods; 26 endorsed a belief in a spiritual force; 22 indicated that they did not believe in any God, gods, or spiritual force; and 8 failed to answer the question. Of the participants, 92 indicated that they were religious, 41 spiritual, 159 both religious and spiritual, 35 as neither religious nor spiritual, and 1 person failed to answer the questions.

Materials

Religiosity

Participants indicated whether they believed in a theistic God, a spiritual force, or had no belief in God or a higher power. Participants also indicated whether they viewed themselves as religious, spiritual, both, or neither and rated how strongly they held their religious or spiritual beliefs on a scale from 0 (weakly) to 10 (strongly) (Interview for Spiritual and Religious Beliefs; King, Speck, & Thomas, 2001).

Behavior efficacy

Participants completed three items from the Belief/Behavior Efficacy subscale of the After Death Belief Scale (Burris & Bailey, 2009). Participants rated their agreement with statements such as “What happens to me afterward is affected by how I live now.” Participants made their ratings on a scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly). Responses to the three items were averaged to form a measure of the extent to which participants viewed their fate in the afterlife as being determined by their behaviors in this life.

Image of God

On the Image of God Scale (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2011), participants rated the extent to which 7 punishing traits (e.g., vengeful, harsh, and angry) and 7 forgiving traits (e.g., loving, gentle, and comforting) were applicable to God. Participants made their ratings on a 7-point Likert-type scale anchored at 1 (does not apply at all) to 7 (applies very much). The responses to the punishing traits were averaged to form a punishing image of God score. The responses to the forgiving traits were averaged to form a forgiving image of God score.

Immoral practices

Following a modified version of an approach used by Middleton and Putney (1962), participants rated how often they engaged in 12 behaviors (e.g., stealing, cheating, and lying) on a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (frequently). They also rated how immoral they viewed each behavior on a scale from 1 (not at all immoral) to 5 (extremely immoral). A frequency of immoral action score was calculated as the average frequency ratings for behaviors rated as at least somewhat immoral (3 or higher of a 5-point scale). The resulting scored offered an index of how often participants engaged in behaviors that they deemed as immoral.

Religious discrepancy

Participants rated how often they read scripture, prayed, attended worship services, and had contact with religious leaders on a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Participants also rated how important it was for a religious person to engage in these practices on a scale from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (essential or very important). A difference score was calculated by subtracting the frequency rating from the importance rating. The religious discrepancy score was calculated as the average of these differences. However, only practices that were rated as at least somewhat important (3 or higher of a 5-point scale) were used in calculating the discrepancy score. The resulting score served as an index of how well participants were adhering to the standards of religious practice they deemed as important.

Collett–Lester Fear of Death Scale

Participants completed the personal fear of death subscale of the Collett–Lester Fear of Death Scale (Lester, 1994). The complete Collett–Lester Scale contains items assessing consequences of death and the dying for both the self and other people. In this study, only the items about the consequences of death to the self were included. Conceptually, we were most interested in how people feared death and not the dying process and about their fears related to how death affected them personally and not other people. Participants rated how disturbed or anxious they felt in reference to eight items such as “The total isolation of death” and “Never thinking or experiencing.” Participants made their ratings on a scale from 1 (not anxious) to 5 (very anxious).

Fear of Personal Death Scale

The modified Fear of Personal Death Scale (FPDS; Burris & Bailey, 2009) asks participants to rate their agreement with 30 statements about death that all begin with the phrase “The thought of my own death disturbs me because it means _____.” Burris and Bailey modified the wording of these statements from the original FPDS (Florian & Kravetz, 1983) to reduce ambiguities in the English wording of the items that were translated from the original version, which was in Hebrew. In addition to an overall score, this measure yields five separate scores reflecting specific aspects of death. The fear of loss of self subscale measures fears that death is the destruction of the personality and the permanent loss of any sense of self with six items such as “I will eventually be no longer recognizable as a person.” The fear of deprivation subscale measures fears that death brings an end to creative activities and thwarts the pursuit any future goals or plans with eight items such as “Not being able to accomplish all of my life goals.” The fear of being forgotten subscale measures fears about the possibility of dying without leaving any lasting impact on other people or the world with five items such as “My absence may not be noticed or felt.” The other-oriented fears subscale measures fears about the potential negative impact personal death will have on loved ones left behind with four items such as “I will be unable to comfort or provide for people close to me.” The fear of the mystery of what happens after death measures fears about the uncertainty regarding what happens after death with four items such as “Uncertainty regarding what to expect at that point.”

Participants rated how much each of the 30 statements was true of their own attitude about death on a scale from 1 (not at all true) to 7 (very true). Burris and Bailey (2009) reported good internal consistencies for all five subscales with alpha’s ranging from .87 for fear of being forgotten and other-oriented fears to .93 for fear of deprivation.

Procedure

Participants arrived, in small groups of up to 10, at a psychology laboratory, where they were informed that the research study was an investigation of the relation between personality and attitudes. They were told that their participation would involve answering some question about religion and completing various measures of personality and attitudes some of which might be unpleasant to think about. All participants provided demographic information first. Due to concerns about potential order effects, the materials were counterbalanced by having participants complete the questions about religion, immoral behavior, and death anxiety in one of six predetermined orders. After completing all questionnaire materials, participants were debriefed about the purpose of the study, thanked, and dismissed.

Results

The descriptive statistics and internal consistencies for all measures are presented in Table 1, where it can be seen that all the measures with the exception of behavior efficacy had good reliability as evidenced by Cronbach’s alpha of greater than .70. Behavior efficacy had marginal internal reliability.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Reliabilities for All Measures.

	M	SD	α
Collett–Lester	3.02	1.10	.89
FPDS total	3.92	1.45	.96
FPDS deprivation	4.22	1.66	.93
FPDS forgotten	3.55	1.84	.85
FPDS other-oriented	5.16	1.62	.89
FPDS mystery	3.77	2.04	.92
PDS loss of self	3.03	1.79	.89
Behavior efficacy	5.07	1.70	.63
Punishing God	2.70	1.24	.76
Forgiving	6.41	0.95	.92
Frequency of engaging in actions deemed immoral	1.50	0.45	.81
Religious discrepancy	1.10	0.87	.81
Strength of religious views	7.13	2.54

Note. FPDS = Fear of Personal Death Scale.

Categorical Measures of Religious Affiliation, Belief, and Identity

The first sets of analyses examined the differences in death anxiety as a function of self-reported religious affiliation, belief, and identity. A series of independent samples t tests were used to compare death anxiety scores for those who had no religious affiliation (identified as atheist, agnostic, or observing no religion, n = 48) to the combined group of those who identified as having any religious affiliation pooled across the various religions (n = 271). As can be seen in Table 2, there were no differences in death anxiety as a function of religious affiliation.

Table 2.

Death Anxiety as a Function of Religious Affiliation.

	Not religious M (SD)	Religious M (SD)	t	p
Collett–Lester	2.92 (1.15)	3.05 (1.08)	−0.7	.467
FPDS total	4.05 (1.45)	3.88 (1.45)	0.7	.464
FPDS deprivation	4.31 (1.62)	4.19 (1.65)	0.5	.635
FPDS forgotten	3.93 (1.96)	3.47 (1.82)	1.6	.119
FPDS other-oriented	4.75 (1.87)	5.22 (1.56)	−1.9	.061
FPDS mystery	4.15 (1.97)	3.68 (2.04)	1.5	.104
PDS loss of self	3.26 (1.79)	2.98 (1.79)	1.0	.329

Note. FPDS = Fear of Personal Death Scale.

A series of one-way analyses of variance examined the differences in death anxiety as a function of whether participants reported believing in one God, multiple gods, a spiritual force, or no belief at all. As can be seen in Table 3, there were no differences in death anxiety as a function of belief in God, gods, or a spiritual force.

Table 3.

Death Anxiety as a Function of Religious Belief.

		Multiple Gods	Spiritual force	No belief	F
	One God	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)
Collett–Lester	3.04 (1.09)	3.52 (1.47)	2.90 (1.20)	2.63 (1.09)	1.38
FPDS total	3.90 (1.46)	4.25 (2.00)	4.09 (1.46)	3.51 (1.21)	0.79
FPDS deprivation	4.22 (1.67)	4.62 (2.23)	4.16 (1.76)	3.92 (1.47)	0.34
FPDS forgotten	3.50 (1.82)	3.36 (1.92)	4.01 (1.84)	3.15 (1.95)	0.92
FPDS other-oriented	5.23 (1.55)	4.75 (2.36)	5.01 (2.02)	4.42 (1.70)	1.87
FPDS mystery	3.37 (2.05)	4.50 (2.06)	4.63 (1.89)	3.42 (1.79)	2.19
PDS loss of self	3.00 (1.80)	3.84 (2.12)	3.23 (2.03)	2.59 (1.26)	0.89

Note. FPDS = Fear of Personal Death Scale.

A series of one-way analyses of variance examined the differences in death anxiety as a function of whether participants identified as religious, spiritual, both, or neither. As can be seen in Table 4, there were no differences in death anxiety as a function of religious identity.

Table 4.

Death Anxiety as a Function of Religious Identity.

	ReligiousM (SD)	SpiritualM (SD)	BothM (SD)	NeitherM (SD)	F
Collett–Lester	3.07 (1.07)	3.11 (1.19)	3.03 (1.10)	2.73 (1.09)	1.0
FPDS Total	3.86 (1.39)	4.14 (1.56)	3.95 (1.43)	3.67 (1.57)	0.7
FPDS deprivation	4.14 (1.62)	4.44 (1.72)	4.28 (1.63)	3.86 (1.78)	1.0
FPDS forgotten	3.48 (1.75)	3.66 (1.81)	3.61 (1.88)	3.32 (1.94)	0.3
FPDS other-oriented	5.23 (1.51)	5.01 (1.99)	5.27 (1.49)	4.65 (1.90)	1.6
FPDS mystery	3.61 (1.83)	4.39 (2.11)	3.66 (2.10)	3.93 (2.04)	1.7
PDS loss of self	2.97 (1.69)	3.38 (1.94)	3.23 (2.03)	2.59 (1.26)	0.6

Note. FPDS = Fear of Personal Death Scale.

Continuous Measures of Specific Religious Beliefs and Religious and Moral Behaviors

The correlations among the measures of death anxiety and the religious and moral variables are presented in Table 5.

Table 5.

Correlations Among Religious Variables and Fears of Death.

	CL	FPDS	Dep	For	OO	Mystery	LOS
Behavior efficacy	−.07	−.17**	−.12*	−.15**	−.03	−.23**	−.18**
Punishing God	−.03	.03	.01	.04	−.01	.05	.04
Forgiving God	−.01	−.02	−.04	−.04	.09	−.06	−.00
Frequency immoral actions	.02	.00	.01	−.02	.07	−.01	−.01
Religious discrepancy	.14*	.16**	.14*	.14*	.08	.16**	.13*
Strength of religious views	−.19**	−.25**	−.22**	−.17**	−.02	−.31**	−.23**

Note. CL = Collett-Lester; Dep = Fear of deprivation; For = Fear of being forgotten; FPDS = Fear of Personal Death Scale total; LOS = fear of loss of self; Mystery = Fear of mystery; OO = Other-oriented fears

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Contrary to our expectation, the frequency of immoral actions was not correlated with any of the measures of death anxiety. The results were, however, consistent with the idea that religion can be both a source of comfort and concern regarding death anxiety. Both greater confidence in the convictions of one’s religious beliefs and greater sense of control over one’s fate in the afterlife through ethical living in this life were associated with less death anxiety. In contrast, the perception that one was failing to live up to the proper standards of religious conduct was associated with more death anxiety.

Regression Analyses

The main hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regression. Separate regression analyses were run for each of the two measures of fear of death (Collett–Lester and FPDS). Behavior efficacy, belief in a punishing God, belief in a forgiving God, frequency of engaging in actions deemed immoral, and the discrepancy between ideal and actual religious behaviors were entered as predictor variables in Step 1. The theoretically relevant two-way interactions were entered in Step 2: Punishing God × Behavior Efficacy, Forgiving God × Behavior Efficacy, Punishing God × Frequency of Engaging in Actions Deemed Immoral, Forgiving God × Frequency of Engaging in Actions Deemed Immoral, Punishing God × Discrepancy Between Ideal and Actual Religious Behaviors, and Forgiving God × Discrepancy Between Ideal and Actual Religious Behaviors. The theoretically relevant three-way interactions were entered in Step 3: Discrepancy Between Ideal and Actual Religious Behaviors × Punishing God × Behavior Efficacy, Religious Behaviors × Forgiving God × Behavior Efficacy, Frequency of Engaging in Actions Deemed Immoral × Punishing God × Behavior Efficacy, and Frequency of Engaging in Actions Deemed Immoral × Forgiving God × Behavior Efficacy.

Regression analyses for Collett–Lester

There was a statistically significant main effect for discrepancy between ideal and actual religious behaviors, B = .175, SEB = .081, β = .137, t = 2.15, p = .032, such that as participants reported a greater discrepancy between the religious behaviors they thought were important and what they actually did, they also tended to report more fears of death. There was also a statistically significant Discrepancy Between Ideal and Actual Religious Behaviors × Punishing God interaction effect, B = .162, SEB = .062, β = .154, t = 2.60, p = .010. This interaction is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

This graph shows the interaction effect of religious discrepancy and belief in a punishing God on scores on the Collett–Lester Fear of Death Scale. For participants who did not view God as particularly punishing, the extent to which they failed to live up to standards of religious behavior did not affect their fears of death. In contrast, for participants who viewed God as punishing, greater perceived failure to live up to the standards of religious practice was associated with more reported fears of death.

To interpret this interaction, the simple effect of religious discrepancy on fears of death was examined at low (−1 SD) and high (+1 SD) levels of belief in a punishing God. At high levels of belief in a punishing God, religious discrepancy was a significant predictor of fears of death, B = .359, SEB = .112, β = .282, t = 3.22, p = .001. At low levels of belief in a punishing God, religious discrepancy was not a significant predictor of fears of death, B = .007, SEB = .107, β = .005, t = 0.06, p = .950. Therefore, religious discrepancy only increased fears of death among those with punishing views of God.

Regression analyses for FPDS

There was a statistically significant main effect for behavior efficacy, B = −.171, SEB = .058, β = −.1917, t = −2.94, p = .004, such that as participants reported a greater belief that their actions in this life influenced their fate in the afterlife, they also tended to report more fears of death. The effect for discrepancy between ideal and actual religious behaviors approached statistical significance, B = .200, SEB = .119, β = .137, t = 1.89, p = .059, such that, as participants reported a greater discrepancy between the religious behaviors they thought were important and what they actually did, they also tended to report more fears of death.

There was also a statistically significant Discrepancy Between Ideal and Actual Religious Behaviors × Punishing God interaction effect, B = .233, SEB = .0802, β = .1168, t = 2.89, p = .004. This interaction is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

This graph shows the interaction effect of religious discrepancy and belief in a punishing God on scores on the Fear of Personal Death Scale. For participants did not view God as particularly punishing, the extent to which they failed to live up to standards of religious behavior did not affect their fears of death. In contrast, for participants who viewed God as punishing, greater perceived failures to live up to the standards of religious practice was associated with more reported fears of death.

To interpret this interaction, the simple effect of religious discrepancy on fears of death was examined at low (−1 SD) and high (+ 1 SD) levels of belief in a punishing God. At high levels of belief in a punishing God, religious discrepancy was a significant predictor of fears of death, B = .507, SEB = .114, β = .303, t = 3.52, p = .000. At low levels of belief in a punishing God, religious discrepancy was not a significant predictor of fears of death, B = −.081, SEB = .138, β = −.048, t = −0.58, p = .558. Therefore, religious discrepancy only increases fears of death among those with punishing views of God.

There was also a statistically significant frequency of Immoral Action × Forgiving God × Behavior Efficacy three-way interaction, B = .336, SEB = .141, β = .175, t = 2.38, p = .018 (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

This graph shows the three-way interaction between behavior efficacy, belief in a forgiving God, and frequency of engaging in actions perceived as immoral on total scores on the Fear of Personal Death Scale. Although none of the simple slopes of immoral actions are statistically significant the direction of the slope varied as a function of beliefs about how forgiving God was and beliefs about how much fate in the afterlife was controlled by actions in this life.

Among participants with low levels of behavior efficacy, immoral action was associated with nominally (although not statistically) more fear of death for those with less forgiving views of God but was associated with nominally (although not statistically) less fear of death for those with more forgiving views of God. The pattern was reversed among participants with high levels of behavior efficacy, such that immoral action was associated with nominally (although not statistically) less fear of death for those with less forgiving views of God but was associated with nominally (although not statistically) more fear of death for those with more forgiving views of God. This pattern of results was counter to the hypothesis that immorality would be linked with more fear of death only among those with high levels of behavior efficacy who viewed God as less forgiving. The observed findings are difficult to interpret coherently but may reflect the possibility that those who view their fate in the afterlife as contingent upon moral conduct and who recognize they are not living up to those moral standards might be experiencing high levels of death anxiety and therefore conceptualizing God as more forgiving as a means to manage that anxiety.

Discussion

The results of this study failed to find any differences in death anxiety as a function of categorical measures of religious affiliation, belief in God, or self-reported religious identity. This outcome is consistent with some previous research failing to find any connection between religion and death anxiety (Feifel, 1974; Shadinger et al., 1999; Templer & Dotson, 1970) and highlights the need to move beyond simple categorical measures of religiosity to look at more nuanced measures of specific types of religious beliefs (Kastenbaum, 2000).

When examining specific aspects of religious belief, a relationship between religion and death anxiety did emerge in this study. The extent to which fate in the afterlife was believed to depend on behavior in this life was negatively correlated with fears of death. This finding is consistent with previous research (Burris & Bailey, 2009) and may indicate that the perception of a greater sense of control reduces death anxiety or that the belief in greater control over postdeath fate contributes to more confidence in achieving a positive experience in the afterlife. Similarly, greater strength of religious views was negatively correlated with fears of death in this study. This is consistent with the preponderance of evidence showing an inverse relationship between religiosity and concerns about death (Ellis & Wahab, 2013; Lundh & Radon, 1998; Templer, 1972) and with the theoretical claim that religion serves as a buffer against death anxiety, possibly by affording hope in symbolic and literal immortality (Vail et al., 2010).

While the results of this study provide evidence that certain religious beliefs can buffer death anxiety, they also reveal that religious beliefs may not be in and of themselves sufficient to attenuate fears of death. Among participants in this study, perceived failure to live up to religious standards was associated with more death anxiety. This finding is consistent with the general premise of TMT that protection from death anxiety comes not merely from the adoption of a cultural belief system but from the perception that one is living up to the standards of proper conduct derived from that belief system (Pyszczynski et al., 2015). Previous research has shown that low self-esteem (Abeyta et al., 2014) and thoughts of the undesired-self involving the perceptions that one is being the type of person they do not wish to be (Ogilvie et al., 2008) were associated with greater vulnerability to death anxiety. Although this previous research can be interpreted as showing that failure to live up to general standards of cultural worldview leave people prone to death anxiety, the results of this study offer the first evidence known to the authors that not living up specifically to the religious standards of cultural worldview is associated with more death anxiety. This finding makes a novel contribution to the literature consistent with the terror management claim that in order for religion to lessen death anxieties by offering hope of literal and symbolic immortality, individual believers would have to have confidence that they were adequately practicing and observing the required religious behaviors (Pyszczynski, 2016).

These results of this study are also consistent with the claim derived from the death apprehension theory (Ellis & Wahab, 2013) that religion can either reduce or intensify fears of death depending on a complex interplay of specific religious variables. In this study, failure to live up to religious standards was only associated with increased fears of death among those who held more punishing views of God. The implication is that understanding how people’s religious beliefs are related to their fears of death would require knowing not only how well they believe they are living according to the requirements of proper worship and practice prescribed by their religion but also their beliefs about how lenient or strict God will be in holding them accountable.

The failure in this study to find any relation between the frequency of engaging in immoral behavior and fears of death appears to be inconsistent with the terror management assertion that protection from concerns about death is contingent upon living up to the moral standards articulated in people’s individually internalized by culturally validated cultural worldviews. One possible explanation relates to the complexity of the terror management defenses. While living up to the moral standards of cultural worldview might be one means of abating existential anxiety, enhancing self-esteem, and feeling intimacy in close personal relationships are other buffering mechanisms (Hart, Shaver, & Goldenberg, 2005). The same behaviors that might be deemed as immoral could also potentially serve as means of bolstering self-esteem and building intimacy in personal relationships.

When examining some of the specific immoral behaviors asked about in this study, the list includes drinking, gambling, and premarital sex. Previous terror management research has shown that reminders of death have the ironic effect of increasing expressed intentions to binge drink at least among those who view displaying the ability to handle drinking large amounts of alcohol as relevant to their self-esteem (Jessop & Wade, 2010). Similarly, mortality salience has been demonstrated to increase greed, interest in money, and a focus on materialism (Kasser & Sheldon, 2000). Further, mortality salience increased reported willingness to engage in risky sexual behaviors, presumably as a way of establishing a sense of intimacy in romantic relationships (Taubman-Ben-Ari, 2004). Therefore, it seems plausible that some of the immoral behaviors assessed in this study might also have represented means for enhancing the self-esteem and close relationship aspects of the buffer against death anxiety, at least for some participants.

Consequently, there may have been a tension between competing terror management mechanisms such that engagement in these behaviors would violate moral standards of cultural worldview leaving people prone to increase death anxiety but at the same time would potentially increase self-esteem and perceived intimacy in closer personal relationships, thereby inoculating people from the experience of death anxiety. The potentially different ways the tensions among these competing motives were resolved among different participants may have masked any overall relation between frequency of immoral actions and fears of death in this study. Future research would need to examine individual differences in potentially moderating variables related to the extent to which these immoral actions were perceived as means of enhancing self-esteem or promoting intimacy in personal relationships.

There are constraints on the implications that can be drawn from this study. One limitation is the lack of diversity in the current sample. The sample was composed of American university students, the majority of whom reported being religious and who identified as being Christian. Previous research has shown that Islamic respondents report overall higher levels of fear of death than do Christian participants and that the relationship between religion tends to be positive in direction among Islamic respondents and stronger than among respondents from other religions (Ellis et al., 2013). Further, meta-analysis reveals that the tendency to find negative correlations between religiosity and fears of death is greater among studies of predominantly religious samples (Ellis & Wahab, 2013). Future research is needed to examine whether the patterns of relation among specific religious beliefs and practices in relation to fears of death generalize to samples with more respondents that are non-Christian and more respondents who are less religious.

The correlational nature of the data presented in this study limits the ability to make cause and effect claims. Theories such as terror management (Vail et al., 2010) conceptualize religious beliefs or the lack thereof as the causal factor that will determine individual differences in death anxiety. From this perspective, confidence in a religious worldview and the subjective feeling that one is living up to the standards of that worldview inoculate a person from what would otherwise be overwhelming existential anxiety by allowing him or her to have hope in achieving literal or symbolic immortality. However, it is also possible that individual differences in felt levels of death anxiety might create differences in the appeal of religious ideologies and produce different motivations for following religious standards of practice and conduct. Similarly, while it is plausible that belief in a punishing God might increase fear of death which in turn might promote adherence to religious and ethical standards deemed necessary to gain reward and avoid punishment in the afterlife, it is also possible that perceived failure to live up to religious and ethical standards might increase death anxiety which in turn might promote the desire to view God as more forgiving and less punishing, as a means of abating anxiety without changing behavior.

Establishing a clearer picture of the causal direction of the relationship between religion, morality, and death anxiety will be difficult because it will require a means of manipulating experimentally religious beliefs and perceptions of moral compliance. While it may ultimately prove difficult to manipulate participants’ religious beliefs, there are some promising possibilities. For example, previous research has shown that altering people’s confidence in literal immorality by randomly assigning them to read purported scientific evidence confirming or debunking near death experiences does alter their responses to reminders of death, such that those who were led to believe in the scientific certainty of postdeath experiences were less defensive following death primes (Dechesne et al., 2003). Similarly, Jackson et al. (2017) showed that confidence in the belief in the existence of God could be manipulated by manipulating the number of arguments supporting or refuting the belief that participants were assigned to provide. Asking participants to provide 12 arguments for the existence of God can reduce belief because almost all participants fail to be able to generate this many arguments. Asking participants to provide 12 arguments against the existence of God can increase belief because almost all participants fail to be able to generate this many arguments. Jackson et al. demonstrated that increasing confidence in religious belief through his procedure reduced participants’ implicit fears of death.

A fruitful avenue for future research might employ similar procedures to manipulate not only participants’ belief in God, but also in the existence of the afterlife, and the nature of God as punishing or forgiving. Similarly, future research might manipulate participants’ perceptions that they are adhering to or deviating from moral standards of behavior and expectations for appropriate religious behavior. This could be accomplished by assigning participants to reflect on previous moral or religious failures or successes or by enticing participants to behave unethically and then measuring the consequences for fears of death.

The results of this study provide further support for the terror management perspective on religion (Pyszczynski, 2016; Vail et al., 2010) by showing that the more conviction people have in their religious worldviews the less anxious they are about death, but that perceived failures to live up to the standards of religious worldviews leave people vulnerable to more death anxiety. The results of this study also support the claims from the death apprehension theory (Ellis et al., 2013) that religion can be a source of comfort or concern regarding death anxiety depending on whether people view God as punishing or forgiving, the extent to which they perceive a sense of control or efficacy over their fate in the afterlife by adhering to religious standards of conduct in this life, and their assessment of how well they are living up to the prescribed standards of moral behavior and religious practice. In conclusion, it seems that the relation between religion and fears of death is a complex one. Therefore, understanding whether religion will ameliorate or exacerbate fears of death in any individual person will depend on knowing the specific beliefs that make up that individual’s worldview and their personal perception of how well they are living up to the imperatives derived from those beliefs.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mariah Anderson, LaShay Carter, Hobson Chandler, Taylor Gibson, Shamara Hinds, Zoe Johnson, Ivanka Mocic, Troy Pinkney, Molly Purcell, and Kyle Sexton for their assistance with data collection.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Jonathan F. Bassett is professor and chair of the Department of Psychological Science at Lander University, where he teaches courses in research methods, social psychology, and death and dying.

Mel L. Bussard was a psychology major at Lander University at the time this research was conducted. He graduated in May of 2018 and now works as a social worker in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

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