Afterlife belief preserves hope when thinking about death, new research suggests
Thursday, May 14, 2015 - 10:30
in Psychology & Sociology
The prospect of death does not necessarily leave people feeling hopelessly mortal but depends rather on afterlife belief, suggests new research from psychologists who set out to establish in four separate studies whether people lose hope when thinking about death - known as Terror Management Theory - under a range of different conditions. The research was based on the premise that self-awareness among humans has been shown to create the potential for hope - or the general expectation and feeling that future desired outcomes will occur.