More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state

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.