The emotional toll of hell: cross-national and experimental evidence for the negative well-being effects of hell beliefs.
Though beliefs in Heaven and Hell are related, they are associated with different personality characteristics and social phenomena. Here we present three studies measuring Heaven and Hell beliefs' associations with and impact on subjective well-being. We find that a belief in Heaven is consistently associated with greater happiness and life satisfaction while a belief in Hell is associated with lower happiness and life satisfaction at the national (Study 1) and individual (Study 2) level. An experimental priming study (Study 3) suggests that these differences are mainly driven by the negative emotional impact of Hell beliefs. Possible cultural evolutionary explanations for the persistence of such a distressing religious concept are discussed.
Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, United States of America.
Azim F
AF
Shariff
Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Lara B
LB
Aknin
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003469:Culture; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012067:Religion; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult