How Mortality Salience Affects Religiosity: Considering Life History Theory, Terror Management Theory and IQ
In: Death, Dying, Culture: An Interdisciplinary InterrogationSearch for other papers by Sarah Heany in
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This study aimed at assessing the effects of mortality salience on religiosity, while considering life history strategy and IQ as additional predictors. After a mortality salience or control prime, 104 participants’ religiosity was recorded. Significant interaction effects were found between life history strategy, IQ, and mortality salience when predicting religiosity in multiple regression analyses. While religiosity varied drastically in the control condition − due to individual differences − in the test condition religiosity levels converged. This seemingly unified reaction to mortality salience may reveal a type of adaptive, religious grouping behaviour when facing death.