Be not afraid? death anxiety and religious residue in Christian and non-religious participants

In contemporary society, many individuals shift away from childhood religious belief to atheism or agnosticism. Whether apostasy, which is accompanied by a loss of afterlife beliefs, the loss of social support offered by organised religion and the acceptance of death’s finality, is associated with death anxiety has not been examined. The current study examined whether a religious residue effect existed for death anxiety, in a Christian and non-religious sample. Controlling for covariates, 2-way ANCOVA analysis found no main effects of, or interaction effect between, current and childhood Christianity/non-religiosity, in terms of death anxiety. T-test analysis revealed no difference between religious remainers' and disaffiliates' death anxiety. Extrinsic religiosity was the only variable to mediate the association between religious affiliation and death anxiety and reduced religious disaffiliates' death anxiety. though terror management theory commonlyproposes religious affiliation as a means to reduce death anxiehese findings do not support this. Some evidence to support the religious residue hypothesis is presented, by means of the mediating role of extrinsic religiosity. The study's limitations include its predominantly Irish Catholic sample and failure to consider participants' recent experiences of death and bereavement. Future qualitative research will add valuable insight to these findings.