Religious Orientation and Death Fears

Abstract

This study was designed to clarify the relationship between religious orientation and death fear, and to test the hypothesis that concern about one's possible fate in an afterlife is positively associated with extrinsic religion but negatively correlated with intrinsic religion. The results indicated that extrinsic religion is positively associated with death fear and more specifically with the ranking of concern regarding one's fate in an afterlife. Intrinsic religion was not significantly related to death fear but was negatively correlated with ranking of concern about fate in an afterlife. Research on the relationship between religiosity and fear of death has not produced consistent results. Lester (1967) has shown that the findings of early studies on the issue conflict with each other. Magni (1973) investigated the relationship between more specific religious orientations and death fear and found that extrinsic religion was positively associated with three measures of death fear while intrinsic religion was negatively correlated with a fear of death scale. Kahoe and Dunn (1975) also reported a negative relationship between intrinsic religion and fear of death but no significant relationship between extrinsic religion and fear of death. In examining the relationship between religiosity and fear of death, it may be useful to differentiate between specific fears as well as between various religious orientations. Choron (1964) distinguished three types of death fear: what comes after death, the event of dying, and ceasing to be. The fear of what may come after death seems to be particularly relevant to religious persons, particularly those of the Christian faith. Feifel (1959) found that the religious person, :in This content downloaded from 157.55.39.181 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 06:19:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 74 REVIEW OF RELIGIOUS RESEARCH contrast to the non-religious individual, is' more concerned with afterlife matters. Diggory and Rothman (1961) measured seven' death consequences and reported that concern about, one's fate in a life after death was relatively greater for religious persons: than for nonreligious individuals. The traditional Christian doctrine of life after death with the *alternatives of eternal rewards or punishments may both increase death fear and alleviate it. The doctrine would certainly seem to provide an extrinsic rather than intrinsic motive for religious activity. The present, study was. conducted both to clarify the relationship between religious orientation and death fear, and to test the hypothesis that the specific death concern regarding one's possible fate in an afterlife is positively associated with an extrinsic religious orientation and negatively related to an intrinsic religious orientation.