Belief in Life-After-Death and Mental Health

This chapter summarizes all the major research findings presented in Chaps. 16, 17, and 18 about the association of belief in life-after-death with death anxiety, psychological well-being, psychological distress, and psychiatric symptoms among American adults. The chapter describes (a) the capacity of belief in an afterlife to buffer against the pernicious effects of adverse life events on psychological distress, (b) how pleasant and unpleasant beliefs about the afterlife have differential effects on psychiatric symptomology, and (c) that belief in life-after-death may indirectly affect psychiatric symptoms by affecting our beliefs about the nature of the world. The chapter interprets the major findings in light of Evolutionary Threat Assessment Systems Theory (ETAS Theory) and contrasts ETAS Theory with Terror Management Theory (TM Theory) in several respects, including (a) their predictions about the effects of mortality salience on psychiatric symptoms; (b) the reason why ETAS Theory, but not TM Theory, can explain why certain beliefs about life-after-death can decrease anxiety-related psychiatric symptoms, whereas other beliefs about life-after-death can increase them; and (c) the superior ability of ETAS Theory to explain why psychiatric symptoms exist at all. Finally, the chapter describes how, according to ETAS Theory, social support directly influences psychological distress by providing a sense of safety that alters the brain’s perception of potential threats of harm.