Death anxiety as a function of belief in an afterlife. A comparison between a questionnaire measure and a Stroop measure of death anxiety

Three groups with different kinds of beliefs about life after death (religious believers, atheists, and agnostics) were compared on a questionnaire measure of death anxiety and a Stroop task with death-related words. Although the religious believers reported less death anxiety than the atheists and the agnostics on the questionnaire measure, they did not differ from the other two groups on the Stroop measure. On the other hand, there was a significant interference effect of the death-related words among all subjects, and this effect correlated with age. The results are discussed in terms of the validity of self-report measures and Stroop interference measures of death anxiety.