Measuring an Individual's Investment in the Future: Symbolic Immortality,Sensation Seeking,and Psychic Numbness

Abstract

Robert Jay Lifton has proposed that humans have a compelling urge to relate to the future beyond their own life span, which he calls the need for symbolic immortality. According to Lifton this need may be expressed in different modes across different individuals and societies. These are the biological, religious, nature, creative, and experiential modes. Based on his research with survivors of the Hiroshima bomb, Lifton suggests that the threat of nuclear holocaust can destroy an individual's faith in the future of man, resulting in psychic numbness. This article operationalizes Lifton's constructs and develops an instrument to measure an individual's needs for symbolic immortality in the five modes. Age effects and the relation between symbolic immortality needs and Zuckerman's sensation seeking scales are also explored. The results are discussed in terms of Lifton's prediction that psychic numbness will tend to push people toward the experiential mode and away from the other four modes.

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