Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40307319›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2025

Childhood predictors of belief in life after death across 22 countries.

Zhuo Job Chen, Richard G Cowden, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Thomas Breedlove, Blake Victor Kent, R Noah Padgett, Byron R Johnson, Tyler J VanderWeele

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In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

8 authors.

Zhuo Job ChenSchool of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA. job.chen@charlotte.edu.
Richard G CowdenHuman Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Alexander Moreira-AlmeidaResearch Center in Spirituality and Health (NUPES), School of Medicine, Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil.
Thomas BreedloveInstitute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA.
Blake Victor KentDepartment of Sociology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
R Noah PadgettHuman Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Byron R JohnsonHuman Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Tyler J VanderWeeleHuman Flourishing Program, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Belief in life after death is one of the oldest and most widespread spiritual convictions, and it has been shown to offer various psychological benefits. Understanding the predictors of afterlife beliefs is crucial for gaining insight into religious tenets and their broader impacts on individuals and societies. This retrospective longitudinal study used the first wave of nationally representative data from the Global Flourishing Study, covering 22 countries (N = 202,898), to examine 13 potential childhood predictors of afterlife belief in adulthood. We applied modified Poisson regression to analyze how these predictors influenced afterlife belief. Random-effects meta-analyses aggregated results for the 11 common predictors across all countries. Our results indicated that religious service attendance at age 12 was the most consistent predictor of afterlife belief in adulthood. Negative early experiences-such as childhood abuse and feelings of being an outsider-along with a strong maternal relationship, were linked to higher levels of afterlife belief. Additionally, female gender were associated with an increased likelihood of afterlife belief. This study is the first to use multinational data to provide evidence that a combination of childhood factors are related to afterlife beliefs in adulthood.

Indexed as

DeathAdolescentAdultAgedChildFemaleHumansLongitudinal StudiesMaleMiddle AgedReligionRetrospective StudiesYoung AdultAfterlifeGlobal flourishing studyMultinationalPopulation wellbeingSpiritual belief

Identifiers

PMID40307319
PMCPMC12043831

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.