Patients in a persistent vegetative state are alive, but a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland and Harvard University, finds that people, especially religious ones, tend to view such patients as having less mental capacity, indeed less life, than the dead.
The findings, published in the journal Cognition and available online, suggest that debates over the fate of patients like the late Terri Schiavo may hinge upon our tendency to see minds and bodies as distinct. They also turn on our competing conceptions of the nature of death and life. Schiavo's condition spawned a lengthy legal battle that ended with the removal of her feeding tube in 2005.
In the study, participants rated the mental capacities of accident victims, who were described as either normally functioning, dead or in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), technically alive but unresponsive with permanent brain damage. Most people rated the PVS patients as having less mind than the dead. In particular, people saw vegetative patients as less aware of their environment, possessing less memory, having less of personality and being less capable of emotion than the dead. A persistent vegetative state was also seen to be a state worse than death: People would rather die than fall into such a condition.
"Surprisingly," said lead author Kurt Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Maryland, "the tendency to strip mind from PVS patients was especially robust for the highly religious-a somewhat ironic finding, since religious groups are among the strongest advocates of keeping PVS patients alive."
The study, "More Dead than Dead: Perceptions of Patients in the Persistent Vegitative State," are based on three experiments conducted by Gray, Annie Knickman, an honors student at Harvard University, and Daniel Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard.
"Our research shows a discontinuity between biology and perceptions of mind," said Gray, who directs the Mind, Perception and Morality Lab at the University of Maryland. "People assume that we perceive others minds as they are, but these findings suggest we rely more on intuition than on fact."
Dualism and the Power of Afterlife Beliefs
Gray suggests that the explanation for these findings is dualism-our tendency to separate the world into minds versus bodies. "We focus so much on the bodies of PVS patients that we forget their minds; on the other hand, the bodies of the dead quickly disappear, leaving us free to think of them as only minds."
Evidence for this explanation comes from an experiment in which participants were given one of three descriptions of "David," a hypothetical person who had been in a car wreck. In one description, the accident left David in a persistent vegetative state. In the other two, he died, but the portrayal of him as a dead person differed. In one he was reported as having simply "passed away." The alternate description stated, "After being embalmed at the morgue, he was buried in the local cemetery. David now lies in a coffin underground."
The researchers found that when the dead person was referred to as a "corpse," a description in which the body is emphasized, those who are not religious ascribed equally little mind to PVS patients and the dead. But those who are highly religious judged the dead, regardless of how framed, as having more mind than PVS patients, presumably because of afterlife beliefs.
"For the religious, death represents liberation of the mind from the body, and so to them, PVS patients represent minds or souls trapped in bodies. In light of these beliefs, it is notable that religious groups fervently fight to keep PVS patients alive," said Gray.
He and his co-authors note that rather than resolve the ethical debates posed by Schiavo and other PVS patients, these findings suggest another layer of complexity: People's intuitions, driven by dualism, distort their conceptions of vegetative states.
"Advocates of terminating life support may frame vegetative patients as bodies, while those who advocate continued life support may highlight their mental capacities. Either way, these results suggest that for vegetative patients, life or death may depend more upon the mind of the person making the decision than the mind of the patient," they wrote.
Mind Perception and Morality Lab
Maryland's Mind Perception and Morality Lab investigates moral judgments and how people perceive the minds of others. Research conducted by MPM lab members has been featured in the New York Times, the Economist, the National Post, Harvard Magazine, the Boston Globe and at a TED event (click to see TED talk).
Study Reference: Gray, Knickman & Wegner. 2011. More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state.Cognition
Contacts and sources:
Lee Tune
University of Maryland
The findings, published in the journal Cognition and available online, suggest that debates over the fate of patients like the late Terri Schiavo may hinge upon our tendency to see minds and bodies as distinct. They also turn on our competing conceptions of the nature of death and life. Schiavo's condition spawned a lengthy legal battle that ended with the removal of her feeding tube in 2005.
In the study, participants rated the mental capacities of accident victims, who were described as either normally functioning, dead or in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), technically alive but unresponsive with permanent brain damage. Most people rated the PVS patients as having less mind than the dead. In particular, people saw vegetative patients as less aware of their environment, possessing less memory, having less of personality and being less capable of emotion than the dead. A persistent vegetative state was also seen to be a state worse than death: People would rather die than fall into such a condition.
"Surprisingly," said lead author Kurt Gray, assistant professor of psychology at Maryland, "the tendency to strip mind from PVS patients was especially robust for the highly religious-a somewhat ironic finding, since religious groups are among the strongest advocates of keeping PVS patients alive."
The study, "More Dead than Dead: Perceptions of Patients in the Persistent Vegitative State," are based on three experiments conducted by Gray, Annie Knickman, an honors student at Harvard University, and Daniel Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard.
"Our research shows a discontinuity between biology and perceptions of mind," said Gray, who directs the Mind, Perception and Morality Lab at the University of Maryland. "People assume that we perceive others minds as they are, but these findings suggest we rely more on intuition than on fact."
Dualism and the Power of Afterlife Beliefs
Gray suggests that the explanation for these findings is dualism-our tendency to separate the world into minds versus bodies. "We focus so much on the bodies of PVS patients that we forget their minds; on the other hand, the bodies of the dead quickly disappear, leaving us free to think of them as only minds."
Evidence for this explanation comes from an experiment in which participants were given one of three descriptions of "David," a hypothetical person who had been in a car wreck. In one description, the accident left David in a persistent vegetative state. In the other two, he died, but the portrayal of him as a dead person differed. In one he was reported as having simply "passed away." The alternate description stated, "After being embalmed at the morgue, he was buried in the local cemetery. David now lies in a coffin underground."
The researchers found that when the dead person was referred to as a "corpse," a description in which the body is emphasized, those who are not religious ascribed equally little mind to PVS patients and the dead. But those who are highly religious judged the dead, regardless of how framed, as having more mind than PVS patients, presumably because of afterlife beliefs.
"For the religious, death represents liberation of the mind from the body, and so to them, PVS patients represent minds or souls trapped in bodies. In light of these beliefs, it is notable that religious groups fervently fight to keep PVS patients alive," said Gray.
He and his co-authors note that rather than resolve the ethical debates posed by Schiavo and other PVS patients, these findings suggest another layer of complexity: People's intuitions, driven by dualism, distort their conceptions of vegetative states.
"Advocates of terminating life support may frame vegetative patients as bodies, while those who advocate continued life support may highlight their mental capacities. Either way, these results suggest that for vegetative patients, life or death may depend more upon the mind of the person making the decision than the mind of the patient," they wrote.
Maryland's Mind Perception and Morality Lab investigates moral judgments and how people perceive the minds of others. Research conducted by MPM lab members has been featured in the New York Times, the Economist, the National Post, Harvard Magazine, the Boston Globe and at a TED event (click to see TED talk).
Study Reference: Gray, Knickman & Wegner. 2011. More dead than dead: Perceptions of persons in the persistent vegetative state.Cognition
Contacts and sources:
Lee Tune
University of Maryland
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