The Emotional Toll of Hell: Cross-National and Experimental Evidence for the Negative Well-Being Effects of Hell Beliefs

Though beliefs in Heaven and Hell are related, they are associated with different personality characteristics and social phenomena. Here we present three studies measuring Heaven and Hell beliefs' associations with and impact on subjective well-being. We find that a belief in Heaven is consiste...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Shariff, Azim F., Aknin, Lara B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2014
Materias:
Research Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899000/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24465514
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085251
Descripción
Sumario:Though beliefs in Heaven and Hell are related, they are associated with different personality characteristics and social phenomena. Here we present three studies measuring Heaven and Hell beliefs' associations with and impact on subjective well-being. We find that a belief in Heaven is consistently associated with greater happiness and life satisfaction while a belief in Hell is associated with lower happiness and life satisfaction at the national (Study 1) and individual (Study 2) level. An experimental priming study (Study 3) suggests that these differences are mainly driven by the negative emotional impact of Hell beliefs. Possible cultural evolutionary explanations for the persistence of such a distressing religious concept are discussed.

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