Mental Representations of Paradise and Hell among Orthodox Christians

The paper studied how Orthodox Christians imagine paradise and hell. We searched for differences in detailing of the representations and correlations with the religiosity of the subjects. After pre-selection, 62 Orthodox Christians, residents of Russia (67.74% women and 32.26% men), age from 18 to 57 years (M = 34.32; SD = 11.03) we recruited for this study. The following research methods were used: The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (S. Huber & O. Huber), method of directed associations, mini-essay. Orthodox Christians were found to produce a significantly greater number of associations with the concept of hell than with the concept of paradise (p <= 0.001); the effect size is above average (Cohen's d = 0.566). At the associative level, the mental representations of hell were more detailed than those of paradise. This can be regarded as an indicator of individual experience at the unconscious or weakly realized level that hell is farther than paradise (in the sense of psychological distance). The degree in which these religious concepts are detailed at the associative level is not related to the degree of religiosity, but is related to other factors: presumably, to the cultural background of the concepts, individual characteristics of the respondents, etc.