Further evidence for a curvilinear relationship between religiousness and death anxiety

Abstract

Using the newly-constructed Post-Critical Belief Scale (Duriec, Soenens & Hutsebaut, 2005) and the Revised Death Anxiety Scale (Thorson & Powell, 1994) an opportunity sample of 216 parlicipanls (44 males and 172 females) took part in a survey study to examine the relationship between religiosity, open/closed mindedness and death anxiety. Preliminary data screening revealed significant differences between males and females on mean levels of religiousness and open/closed mindedness. Therefore, to avoid biases in regression estimates, due to heterogeneous subsamples, the male and female subsamples were analysed separately in the main regression analyses. Regression analyses for both the subsamples clearly showed that there was a consistent curvilinear trend in the relationship between religiousness and death anxiety. Similar subsample based analyses showed no relationship between the open/close mindedness dimension of the Post-Critical Beliefs Scale and death anxiety for either males or females. These results support the suspicions of Leming (1979-1980) that the many studies showing a linear trend between religiousness and death anxiety have been biased by restrictions in the range of scores on religiousness, and that the true relationship between religiousness and death anxiety is curvilinear.