Perspectives on Death in Relation to Powerlessness and form of Personal Religion

Minton, Barbara; Spilka, Bernard

doi:10.2190/a692-9epd-l2ke-t192

Cited by 34 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The lack of a relationship between well-being and religiousness in the terminally ill group may be explained by fhe complexity of factors that contribute to well-being. For example, powerlessness (Minton & Spilka, 1976) and congruency between lifestyle and religiousness (Shaver, Lenauer, & Sadd, 1980) influence the relationship between well-being and religion. Others described this relationship as weak but nevertheless significant (Carey, 1974;Hadaway, 1978;Spreitzer & Snyder, 1974.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religiousness among terminally ill and healthy adults

Reed

1986

Research in Nursing & Health

181

120

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study was to compare terminally ill with healthy adults for differences in religiousness; sense of well-being also was explored. This study was based upon a conceptualization of dying as a developmental phase of life. It was hypothesized that terminally ill adults report greater religiousness than healthy adults. A terminally ill and a healthy group with 57 adults each were matched on four key variables: age, gender, education, and religious affiliation. All 114 participants completed two questionnaires: the Religious Perspective Scale and the Index of Well-Being. A t-test of differences between the group means supported the hypothesis (t (112) = 3.11, p less than .001). There was no difference between the groups on sense of well-being; both indicated moderately high levels of well-being. A positive relationship between religiousness and well-being was found in the healthy group (r = .43, p less than .001), but not in the terminally ill group.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religiousness among terminally ill and healthy adults

Reed

1986

Research in Nursing & Health

181

120

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Not surprisingly, empirical research on death attitudes have focused primarily on death anxiety and its wide reaching effects on psychological functioning. For instance, death anxiety is linked to emotions such as guilt, motivation such as powerlessness (Minton & Spilka, 1976), and personality traits such as neuroticism (Lee & Surething, in press). The core of one's self is also adversely affected by death anxiety such that it is associated with lower levels of self-efficacy (Tang, Wu, & Yan, 2002), self-esteem (Cotter, 2003), and self-control (Galliot, Schmeichel, & Baumeister, 2006).…”

Section: Attitudes Toward Death: Death Anxiety and Death Fascinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations Between Death Fascination, Death Anxiety and Religion among Polish College Students

Lee

Piotrowski

Różycka

et al. 2013

Polish Psychological Bulletin

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous research examining the relationship between religion and attitudes about death have yielded mixed results due to over-simplified conceptualizations of constructs, lack of theory, and an over-reliance on Western samples. To overcome these issues, the present study examined the relationship between three types of religious orientation and two types of death attitudes among a sample of 532 college students in Poland. The results demonstrated unique relations between religion and death attitudes, as well emphasized the importance of considering religious engagement as a moderating variable. Although the results were generally consistent with Terror Management Theory, other theoretical perspectives were considered as well.

show abstract

“…Finally, and most important for our line of reasoning, there are several studies showing that various measures of fear of death are negatively correlated with intrinsic and positively correlated with extrinsic religious orientation (e.g., Bolt, 1977;Minton & Spilka, 1976;Spilka et al, 1977; for review, see Donahue, 1985 2 ). Genia (1996) concluded that intrinsic religiousness can be seen as a strong predictor of psychospiritual health and that intrinsic believers' sense of a personal relationship with God may make them less vulnerable to existential angst.…”

Section: Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Religious Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience.

Jonas

Fischer

2006

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

298

240

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Terror management theory suggests that people cope with awareness of death by investing in some kind of literal or symbolic immortality. Given the centrality of death transcendence beliefs in most religions, the authors hypothesized that religious beliefs play a protective role in managing terror of death. The authors report three studies suggesting that affirming intrinsic religiousness reduces both death-thought accessibility following mortality salience and the use of terror management defenses with regard to a secular belief system. Study 1 showed that after a naturally occurring reminder of mortality, people who scored high on intrinsic religiousness did not react with worldview defense, whereas people low on intrinsic religiousness did. Study 2 specified that intrinsic religious belief mitigated worldview defense only if participants had the opportunity to affirm their religious beliefs. Study 3 illustrated that affirmation of religious belief decreased death-thought accessibility following mortality salience only for those participants who scored high on the intrinsic religiousness scale. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that only those people who are intrinsically vested in their religion derive terror management benefits from religious beliefs.

show abstract

Perspectives on Death in Relation to Powerlessness and form of Personal Religion

Cited by 34 publications

References 14 publications

Religiousness among terminally ill and healthy adults

Religiousness among terminally ill and healthy adults

Associations Between Death Fascination, Death Anxiety and Religion among Polish College Students

Terror management and religion: Evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About