Afterlife Beliefs, Life Extension and Gender: Evidence for Life Extension Technologies Reduces Death Thought Accessibility Among Males


Uri Lifshin(1*), Jeff Greenberg(2), Melissa Soenke(3), Peter J. Helm(4), Tom Pyszczynski(5)

(1) Reichman University, Israel
(2) University of Arizona Tucson, United States
(3) California State University Channel Islands, United States
(4) Montana State University, United States
(5) University of Colorado, United States
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


Purpose: This study investigates whether reading about Indefinite Life Extension (ILE) can reduce death thought accessibility, particularly among men, as a way to manage death-related concerns. The study aims to explore gender differences in the psychological function of ILE as a terror management strategy. Methodology: An experimental design was used, involving 110 American undergraduate students. Participants were randomly assigned to read about ILE, the afterlife, or a neutral technological advance (teleportation) following a mortality salience prime. The primary outcome measured was death thought accessibility (DTA), with gender as a key variable. Findings: The results revealed that, after being reminded of mortality, reading about the possibility of ILE significantly reduced DTA among men compared to the control condition. However, this effect was not observed among women, who did not show a similar reduction in DTA after reading about ILE. Research Implications: These findings contribute to the growing literature on the terror management function of ILE, highlighting the role of gender in moderating responses to death-related concerns. The study suggests that ILE may serve as an effective strategy for men in managing existential anxiety, whereas women may rely more on traditional beliefs in the afterlife. Originality/Value: This study offers new insights into the gender-specific psychological mechanisms underlying the appeal of life extension technologies, expanding the understanding of how different groups use ILE as a tool for managing death anxiety.

Keywords


death; gender differences; immortality; life extension; terror management.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021212

Arber, S., Vandrevala, T., Daly, T., & Hampson, S. (2008). Understanding gender differences in older people’s attitudes towards life-prolonging medical technologies. Journal of Aging Studies, 22(4), 366–375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2008.05.009

Arndt, J., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Simon, L. (1997). Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: Exploring the psychodynamics of terror management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.1.5

Ballinger, S., Tisdale, T. C., Sellen, D. L., & Martin, L. A. (2017). Slowing down time: An exploration of personal life extension desirability as it relates to religiosity and specific religious beliefs. Journal of Religion and Health, 56(1), 171–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-016-0218-7

Barnett, M. D., & De La Garza, J. M. (2022). Clinging to power, clinging to life: Rightwing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and attitudes toward life extension. Death Studies, 46(3), 307–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2019.1699204

Barnett, M. D., & Helphrey, J. H. (2021). Who wants to live forever? Age cohort differences in attitudes toward life extension. Journal of Aging Studies, 57, 100931. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2021.100931

Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York: Free Press.

Brown, N. O. (1959). Life against death: The psychoanalytic meaning of history. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 24(4), 349–354. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047358

Davis, J. K. (2016). Four ways life extension will change our relationship with death. Bioethics, 30(3), 165–172. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12161

De Grey, A., & Rae, M. (2007). Ending aging: The rejuvenation breakthroughs that could reverse human aging in our lifetime. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Dechesne, M., Pyszczynski, T., Arndt, J., Ransom, S., Sheldon, K. M., van Knippenberg, A., & Janssen, J. (2003). Literal and symbolic immortality: The effect of evidence of literal immortality on self-esteem striving in response to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 722–737. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.722

Donner, Y., Fortney, K., Calimport, S. R., Pfleger, K., Shah, M., & Betts-LaCroix, J. (2015). Great desire for extended life and health amongst the American Public. Frontiers in Genetics, 6, 353. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene00353

Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1998). Symbolic immortality and the management of the terror of death: The moderating role of attachment style. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 725–734. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.725

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). New York: Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2), 308–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.308

Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Simon, L., & Breus, M. (1994). Role of consciousness and accessibility of death-related thoughts in mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(4), 627–637. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.627

Heflick, N. A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2012). No atheists in foxholes: Arguments for (but not against) afterlife belief buffers mortality salience effects for atheists. British Journal of Social Psychology, 51(3), 385–392. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02058.x

Helm, P. J., Lifshin, U., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2022). Will life extension affect our social judgments? Evidence that the possibility of indefinite life extension increases harshness toward social transgressors. Psychological Reports, 125(2), 1041–1067. https://doi.org/10.1177/003329412198899

Horne, J. A., & Östberg, O. (1976). A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. International Journal of Chronobiology, 4(2), 97–110. Retrieved from http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/1027738

Jackson, J. C., Jong, J., Bluemke, M., Poulter, P., Morgenroth, L., & Halberstadt, J. (2018). Testing the causal relationship between religious belief and death anxiety. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 8(1), 57–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1238842

Jong, J., Halberstadt, J., & Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 983–989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.005

Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The sickness unto death (H. Hong & E. Hong, trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Kogan, N., Tucker, J., & Porter, M. (2011). Extending the human life span: An exploratory study of pro- and anti-longevity attitudes. International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 73(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.2190/AG.73.1.a

Lang, F. R., & Rupprecht, F. S. (2019). Motivation for longevity across the life span: An emerging issue. Innovation in Aging, 3(1), igz014--11. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igz014

Lifshin, U., Greenberg, J., Soenke, M., Darrell, A., & Pyszczynski, T. (2018). Mortality salience, religiosity, and indefinite life extension: Evidence of a reciprocal relationship between afterlife beliefs and support for forestalling death. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 8(1), 31–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1238841

Lifshin, U., Greenberg, J., Weise, D., & Soenke, M. (2016). It’s the end of the world and I feel fine: Soul belief and perceptions of end-of-the-world scenarios. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(1), 104–117. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167215616800

Lifshin, U., Helm, P. J., Greenberg, J., Soenke, M., & Pyszczynski, T. (2019). Women want the heavens, men want the earth: Gender differences in support for life extension technologies. Journal of Individual Differences, 40(3), 156–167. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000288

Lifshin, U., Horner, D. E., Helm, P. J., Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2021). Self-esteem and immortality: Evidence regarding the terror management hypothesis that high self-esteem is associated with a stronger sense of symbolic immortality. Personality and Individual Differences, 175, 110712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110712

Lifton, R. J. (1979). The Broken connection: On death and the continuity of life. New York: Basic Books.

Martens, A., Burke, B. L., Schimel, J., & Faucher, E. H. (2011). Same but different: Meta‐analytically examining the uniqueness of mortality salience effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41(1), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.767

Norenzayan, A., & Hansen, I. G. (2006). Belief in supernatural agents in the face of death. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205280251

Partridge, B., Lucke, J., Bartlett, H., & Hall, W. (2011). Public attitudes towards human life extension by intervening in ageing. Journal of Aging Studies, 25(1), 73–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2010.08.012

Partridge, B., Underwood, M., Lucke, J., Bartlett, H., & Hall, W. D. (2009). Ethical concerns in the community about technologies to extend human life span. The American Journal of Bioethics, 9(12), 68–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265160903318368

Pijnenburg, M. A. M., & Leget, C. (2007). Who wants to live forever? Three arguments against extending the human life. Journal of Medical Ethics, 33(10), 585–587. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2006.017822

Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (1999). A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts: An extension of terror management theory. Psychological Review, 106(4), 835–845. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.106.4.835

Schimel, J., Hayes, J., & Sharp, M. (2019). A consideration of three critical hypotheses. In C. Routledge & M. Vess (Eds.), Handbook of terror management (pp. 1–30). Elsevier Academic Press.

Schimel, J., Hayes, J., Williams, T., & Jahrig, J. (2007). Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 789–803. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789

Schloendrom, J. (2006). Making the case for human life extension: Personal arguments. Bioethics, 20(4), 191–202. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2006.00494.x

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2015). The worm at the core: The role of death in life. New York: Random House.

Turner, L. (2004). Life extension research: health, illness, and death. Health Care Analysis, 12(2), 117–129. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HCAN.0000041186.34205.98

Underwood, M., Bartlett, H. P., Partridge, B., Lucke, J., & Hall, W. D. (2009). Community perceptions on the significant extension of life: An exploratory study among urban adults in Brisbane, Australia. Social Science & Medicine, 68(3), 496–502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.11.002

Vail, K. E., Rothschild, Z. K., Weise, D. R., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. (2010). A terror management analysis of the psychological functions of religion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309351165

Vail, K. E., Soenke, M., Waggoner, B., & Mavropoulou, I. (2020). Natural, but not Supernatural, literal immortality affirmation attenuates mortality salience effects on worldview defense in atheists. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(3), 312–326. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219855051




DOI: https://doi.org/10.15575/kt.v6i1.23935

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Uri Lifshin, Jeff Greenberg, Melissa Soenke, Peter J. Helm, Tom Pyszczynski

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.