title: Literal and symbolic immortality: the effect of evidence of literal immortality on self-esteem striving in response to mortality salience.
abstract: Three studies investigated the effect of encouraging participants to believe in an afterlife on the relationship between mortality salience and self-esteem striving. Participants were exposed to essays arguing either in favor of or against the existence of an afterlife, and reminded about death or a control topic. Mortality salience led to increased accuracy ratings of a positive personality description (Studies 1 and 2) and increased striving for and defense of values (Study 3) among participants who read the essay arguing against an afterlife, but not among participants who read the essay in favor of it. The implications for the terror management analysis of self-esteem, the appeal of immortality beliefs, and the interplay between self-esteem striving and spiritual pursuits are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Psychology, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. dechesne@psych.kun.nl
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dechesne
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pyszczynski
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Arndt
authors.forename: Sean
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ransom
authors.forename: Kennon M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Sheldon
authors.forename: Ad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Knippenberg
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Janssen
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003469:Culture; D003643:Death; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D010551:Personality; D011932:Reading; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013561:Symbolism; D013997:Time Factors