Examination of the relationships between religiosity and death attitudes in Turkey and the United States

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between religious orientation and death attitudes in Christian U.S. students and Muslim Turkish students. It also assessed whether meaning in life mediated these relationships. Multivariate statistics and path analyses were conducted to identify significant predictors of death attitudes in these groups. Intrinsic religiosity was more consistently associated with positive attitudes toward death than extrinsic religiosity, and these patterns remained consistent across groups. Meaning in life mediated some of these relationships, although not consistently. Evidence suggesting differential relationships between religiosity and death attitudes across groups was found, although the overall results suggest more similarities than differences.

Notes

1 Death anxiety and fear of death are often used interchangeably, and we will treat them as such in this article. However, it has been suggested that fear of death may be more specific and conscious, whereas death anxiety may be more generalized and inaccessible to conscious awareness (Wong et al., 1994).

2 Wong and colleagues define escape acceptance as the appraisal that one’s life is “full of pain and misery, [and] death may appear to be a welcomed alternative,” perhaps implying a positive attitude toward death based “not on the inherent ‘goodness’ of death, but on the ‘badness’ of living” (Wong et al., 1994, p.127).

3 The current study was part of a larger one examining psychological well-being across cultures. In the US sample, 63 participants responded ‘No’ to the question “Would you say that you have some form of religious or spiritual belief?” In the Turkish sample, 88 participants responded “None” to the question “Which religion do you feel connected to?”

4 Based on this criteria, 12 participants were removed from the US sample and 1 participant was removed from the Turkish sample.