1 Introduction

Many religions and much prereflective thought suggest that what I am—my self—is something that persists from childhood through old age. I exist to the extent that my self exists. As intuitive as this idea may be, it is disputed by scientists and philosophers from both Eastern and Western traditions. Buddhists, joined by Western philosophers such as Hume and Parfit, reject the idea that there is any unitary self that persists throughout the lifespan. Instead, they argue, we are constituted by a loose set of traits and mental events. Those traits are ever in flux, and those events are but momentary.

Buddhist philosophers argue that the illusion of a persisting self underlies our fear of death. Once we recognize that there is no self that persists across the lifespan, fear of death should be alleviated, since its very foundation has been undermined. Similarly, Derek Parfit argues that coming to believe that there is no unitary enduring self should lead to changes in practical attitudes, including regard for others (1984, 451), the propriety of punishment (1984, 326), and fear of death (1984, 281–2, 347, 451).

Previous work has shown that beliefs about the persistence of the self affect charitable giving (Bartels, Kvaran, & Nichols, 2013; see also Bartels & Urminsky, 2011) and judgments about the propriety of punishment (Mott, forthcoming; Tierney, Howard, Kumar, Kvaran, & Nichols, 2014). In the present paper, we explore whether beliefs about the persistence of self also affect fear of death by examining cultural groups with different beliefs about the persistence of self.

The notion of a core, immutable self seems so immediate and obvious to those who have grown up in Western, Abrahamically inflected cultures that it is easy to assume it is a cultural universal. But at least at the level of explicit teachings, there are stark differences in how religio‐cultural traditions portray the self. Three major religious traditions—Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism—promote very different views about the self.

European and American culture is strongly shaped by Christianity, with a belief in a soul distinct from the body. The soul persists from birth to death as a numerically identical object and can inhabit different bodies (or even without a body) while retaining its identity. The self is characteristically identified with the soul in this framework, so to ask about postmortem survival is to ask whether one's soul survives the death of the body, typically to live on in a disembodied state in the afterlife. To believe in such survival in this cultural context would suggest a strong sense of personal identity independent of physical identity.

Hindu culture in India takes reincarnation for granted. Unlike American Christian culture, this belief is not a belief in a disembodied existence. But, as in Christianity, it does involve commitment to a soul, or ātman, that is numerically identical throughout life and persists from biological life to biological life. Although ātman is not physical, it always resides within a physical body. The self is typically identified with the ātman. While our traits—including even our species—may change, the atman remains numerically identical and unchanging.

Tibetan culture is deeply inflected by Indo‐Tibetan Buddhism. According to that philosophical and religious framework, everything is impermanent and fleeting. There are no enduring things and no essences. Importantly, this impermanence extends to the self. The self is regarded as an illusion, and there is no personal identity from moment to moment (see, e.g., Carpenter, 2014; chapter 2; Garfield, 2015; chapter 4; Siderits, 2007, chapter 3). Buddhist religious practice is aimed at overcoming what is regarded as the instinctive illusion that there is a self. This is a central part of Tibetan culture. In this cultural framework, no self could survive death, or even momentary change in life. Indeed, certain meditation practices aim precisely to disestablish such a view of self.

In the studies that follow, we investigate the attitudes of people from all of these traditions. In section 2, we report studies on attitudes regarding the self. Here, our goal is to see whether the views about the self promoted by the religious traditions are reflected in the judgments of the people in the different cultures. In section 2.1, we report studies on attitudes about death. Buddhists argue that we only fear death because we suffer from an illusion of a persistent self: if the self does not exist, it is irrational to fear the death of self. It is, however, an empirical question whether practitioners actually adjust their attitudes in these rational ways. Accordingly, we also investigated attitudes about death.

Our participants include the following: Orthodox Hindus from around Varanasi, India; Abrahamics (95% Christian) and nonreligious subjects from the United States, through Amazon's Mechanical‐Turk; Tibetan Buddhists from monasteries in Byalkuppe and Mundgod, India; Lay Tibetans from Northern India; and Tibetan Buddhists from Bhutan. In addition, we asked a group of senior Tibetan monastic scholars to respond to a subset of the questionnaires in the way that a good Buddhist ought to. This provided a way to compare doctrinal Buddhist responses to the responses of our Buddhist participants.

Experimental materials were written in English, then translated into the native tongue of the participants (Standard Tibetan for Tibetans, Hindi for Indians, and Dzongkha for Bhutanese). The translations were prepared by fluent bilingual research assistants. After the translations were produced, they were cross‐checked for agreement by independent bilingual evaluators and checked for ease of comprehension by interviewing monolingual informants.

Asian participants filled out paper packets, which were issued by research assistants who were fluent in the participant's native language. Each packet contained multiple, partially overlapping surveys (for instance, all participants received the Fear of Personal Death scale, but only some subjects received the Tradeoff study). Surveys within each packet were presented in one of two orders; the second order was the reverse of the first. Packets were presented in counterbalanced order between subjects. Within‐survey item order was fixed between subjects.

American participants completed virtual “packets” online. There were two different packets, with full randomization of surveys between subjects. As with the Asian participants, packets were presented in counterbalanced order between subjects and within‐survey item order was fixed between subjects.