Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that the awareness of our eventual death is at odds with our evolved desire to live and that humans attempt to resolve this psychological conflict by investing in cultural worldviews that grant symbolic or literal immortality. The present studies examine the interplay between symbolic and literal immortality striving. Three studies show that, following a death reminder, only individuals who did not have a route to literal immortality (belief in an afterlife) increased how long they believe their culture (Canada in Studies 1 and 2, the United States in Study 3), will last by thousands of years. Study 4 demonstrated that this moderation effect cannot be explained by general religiosity; Study 5 conceptually replicated this finding using a different measure of perceived cultural longevity. Finally, Study 6 demonstrates that for those who were highly invested in their nation but did not believe in an afterlife, perceived cultural longevity was associated with decreased death anxiety. These results are consistent with the notion that people possess a primary path to immortality that follows directly from their worldview. The need for increased specificity in study design in TMT and the threat and defense literature more broadly is discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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A(me)rica 万岁！对民族主义象征不朽的追求与死后生命的信仰之间的相互作用的考察。

恐怖管理理论 (TMT) 提出，我们最终死亡的意识与我们进化的生存欲望不一致，人类试图通过投资于赋予象征性或字面不朽的文化世界观来解决这种心理冲突。目前的研究考察了象征性和字面不朽的追求之间的相互作用。三项研究表明，在死亡提醒之后，只有没有获得永生之路（相信来世）的人才会增加他们相信自己文化的时间（研究 1 和 2 中的加拿大，研究 3 中的美国），将持续数千年。研究 4 表明，这种调节效应不能用普遍的宗教信仰来解释；研究 5 使用一种不同的感知文化寿命的衡量标准从概念上复制了这一发现。最后，研究 6 表明，对于那些对自己的国家高度投入但不相信来世的人来说，感知到的文化长寿与减少死亡焦虑有关。这些结果与人们拥有一条直接来自于他们的世界观的通往永生的主要途径的观念一致。讨论了在 TMT 和更广泛的威胁和防御文献中增加研究设计特异性的必要性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。讨论了在 TMT 和更广泛的威胁和防御文献中增加研究设计特异性的必要性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。讨论了在 TMT 和更广泛的威胁和防御文献中增加研究设计特异性的必要性。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。