Death salience moderates the effect of trauma on religiosity.

Objective: Previous research has shown contradictory evidence for the relationship between religiosity and trauma; exposure to traumatic life events has been associated with both increases and decreases in religiosity over time. On the basis of a long theoretical tradition of linking death and religious belief and recent empirical evidence that thoughts of death may increase religiosity, we tested whether one determinant of trauma's influence on religion is the degree to which it makes death salient.

Method: Using longitudinal data from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, a unique population-representative birth cohort, we tested whether the relationship between trauma and religiosity depends on whether the trauma involves death.