کد مقاله | کد نشریه | سال انتشار | مقاله انگلیسی | نسخه تمام متن |
---|---|---|---|---|
926567 | 921879 | 2011 | 6 صفحه PDF | دانلود رایگان |
Patients in persistent vegetative state (PVS) may be biologically alive, but these experiments indicate that people see PVS as a state curiously more dead than dead. Experiment 1 found that PVS patients were perceived to have less mental capacity than the dead. Experiment 2 explained this effect as an outgrowth of afterlife beliefs, and the tendency to focus on the bodies of PVS patients at the expense of their minds. Experiment 3 found that PVS is also perceived as “worse” than death: people deem early death better than being in PVS. These studies suggest that people perceive the minds of PVS patients as less valuable than those of the dead – ironically, this effect is especially robust for those high in religiosity.
► Vegetative patients are seen to have less mental capacities than the dead.
► People focus on the bodies of PVS patients at the expense of their minds.
► Religious people show this effect most strongly, because of their afterlife beliefs.
► PVS is also seen as a state worse than death.
► These findings reveal an irony behind fights to keep PVS patients alive.
Journal: Cognition - Volume 121, Issue 2, November 2011, Pages 275–280