Death anxiety is the morbid, abnormal or persistent fear of one's own death or the process of
his/her dying. One definition of death anxiety is a "feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude
when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be’". It is also referred
to as thanatophobia, and is distinguished from necrophobia, which is a specific fear
of dead or dying persons and/or things. Lower ego integrity, more physical problems, and
more psychological problems are predictive of higher levels of death anxiety in elderly
people.
Types Robert Langs distinguishes three types of
death anxiety: Predatory death anxiety
Predatory death anxiety arises from the fear of being harmed. It is the most basic and
oldest form of death anxiety, with its origins stemming from the first unicellular organisms’
set of adaptive resources. Unicellular organisms have receptors that have evolved to react
to external dangers and they also have self-protective, responsive mechanisms made to guarantee survival
in the face of chemical and physical forms of attack or danger. In humans, this form
of death anxiety is evoked by a variety of danger situations that put the recipient at
risk or threatens his or her survival. These traumas may be psychological and/or physical.
Predatory death anxieties mobilize an individual’s adaptive resources and lead to fight or flight,
active efforts to combat the danger or attempts to escape the threatening situation.
Predation or predator death anxiety Predation or predator death anxiety is a form
of death anxiety that arises from an individual physically and/or mentally harming another.
This form of death anxiety is often accompanied by unconscious guilt. This guilt, in turn,
motivates and encourages a variety of self made decisions and actions by the perpetrator
of harm to others. Existential death anxiety
Existential death anxiety is the basic knowledge and awareness that natural life must end.
It is said that existential death anxiety directly correlates to language; that is,
language has created the basis for this type of death anxiety through communicative and
behavioral changes. Existential death anxiety is known to be the most powerful form. There
is an awareness of the distinction between self and others, a full sense of personal
identity, and the ability to anticipate the future. Humans defend against this type of
death anxiety through denial, which is effected through a wide range of mental mechanisms
and physical actions many of which also go unrecognized. While limited use of denial
tends to be adaptive, its use is usually excessive and proves to be costly emotionally.
Awareness of human mortality arose through some 150,000 years ago. In that extremely
short span of evolutionary time, humans have fashioned but a single basic mechanism with
which they deal with the existential death anxieties this awareness has evoked—denial
in its many forms. Thus denial is basic to such diverse actions as breaking rules and
violating frames and boundaries, manic celebrations, violence directed against others, attempts
to gain extraordinary wealth and/or power—and more. These pursuits often are activated by
a death-related trauma and while they may lead to constructive actions, more often than
not, they lead to actions that are, in the short and long run, damaging to self and others.
Theories Thanatophobia
Sigmund Freud hypothesized that people express a fear of death, called thanatophobia. He
saw this as a disguise for a deeper source of concern. It was not actually death that
people feared, because in Freud's view nobody believes in his or her own death. The unconscious
does not deal with the passage of time or with negations, which does not calculate amount
of time left in one's life. Furthermore, that which one does fear cannot be death itself,
because one has never died. People who express death-related fears, actually are trying to
deal with unresolved childhood conflicts that they cannot come to terms with or express
emotion towards. The name Thanatophobia is made from the Greek figure of death known
as Thanatos. Wisdom: Ego integrity vs. despair
Developmental Psychologist, Erik Erikson, formulated the psychosocial theory that explained
that people progress through a series of crises as they grow older. The theory also envelops
the concept that once an individual reaches the latest stages of life, they reach the
level he titled as "ego integrity". Ego Integrity is when one comes to terms with his life and
accepts it. It was also suggested that when a person reaches the stage of late adulthood
he becomes involved in a thorough overview of his life to date. When one can find meaning
or purpose in his life, he has reached the integrity stage. In opposition, when an individual
views his life as a series of failed and missed opportunities, then he does not reach the
ego integrity stage. Elders that have attained this stage of ego integrity are believed to
exhibit less of an influence from death anxiety. Terror management theory
Theory of Ernest Becker was based on existential view which turned death anxiety theories towards
a new dimension. It said that death anxiety is not only real, but also it is people's
most profound source of concern. He explained the anxiety as so intense that it can generate
fears and phobias of everyday life—Fears of being alone or in a confined space. Based
on the theory, many of people's daily behavior consist of attempts to deny death and to keep
their anxiety under strict regulation. As an individual becomes more aware of the
inevitability of death, they will instinctively try to suppress it out of fear. The method
of suppression usually leads to mainstreaming towards cultural beliefs, leaning for external
support rather than treading alone. This behavior may range from simply thinking about death
to severe phobias and desperate actions. Death and adjustment hypotheses
Mohammad Samir Hossain, faculty at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and Medical
College for Women and Hospital, postulated the Death and adjustment hypotheses. With
the declaration of the hypotheses, two things were postulated. The first part of the hypotheses
theorizes that death should not be considered the end of existence. The next segment states
the belief that the immortal pattern of human existence can only be adopted in a morally
rich life with the attitude towards morality and materialism balanced mutually.
Being, time, and Dasein Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher,
on the one hand showed death as something conclusively determined, in the sense that
it is inevitable for every human being, while on the other hand, it unmasks its indeterminate
nature via the truth that one never knows when or how death is going to come. Heidegger
does not engage in speculation about whether being after death is possible. He argues that
all human existence is embedded in time: past, present, future, and when considering the
future, we encounter the notion of death. This then creates angst. Angst can create
a clear understanding in one that death is a possible mode of existence, which Heidegger
described as “clearing”. Thus, angst can lead to a freedom about existence, but only
if we can stop denying our mortality. Meaning management theory
Paul T. P. Wong's work on the meaning management theory indicate that human reactions to death
are complex, multifaceted and dynamic. His “Death Attitude Profile” identifies three
types of death acceptances as Neutral, Approach and Escape acceptances. Apart from acceptances,
his work also represents different aspects of the meaning of Death Fear that are rooted
in the bases of death anxiety. The ten meanings he proposes are finality, uncertainty, annihilation,
ultimate loss, life flow disruption, leaving the loved ones, pain and loneliness, prematurity
and violence of death, failure of life work completion, and judgment and retribution centered.
Other theories Other theories on death anxiety were introduced
in the late part of the twentieth century. The existential approach, with theorists such
as Rollo May and Victor Frankl, views an individual's personality as being governed by the continuous
choices and decisions in relation to the realities of life and death. Another approach is the
regret theory which was introduced by Adrian Tomer and Grafton Eliason. The main focus
of the theory is to target the way people evaluate the quality and/or worth of their
lives. The possibility of death usually makes people more anxious if they feel that they
have not and cannot accomplish any positive task in the life that they are living. Research
has tried to unveil the factors that might influence the amount of anxiety people experience
in life. Personal meanings of death
Humans develop meanings and associate them with objects and events in their environment,
provoking certain emotions within an individual. People tend to develop personal meanings of
death which could accordingly be negative or positive for the individual. If they are
positive, then the consequences of those meanings can be comforting. If negative they can cause
emotional turmoil. Depending on the certain meaning one has associated with death, the
consequences will vary accordingly whether they are negative or positive meanings.
Religiosity's effect The thought of death causes a different degree
of anxiety for different individuals, depending on many factors.
A 2013 study involving people from the US, Turkey, and Malaysia found that religiosity
is positively correlated with increased fear of death, meaning more religious individuals
fear death more. It has been shown through results of various
studies that a strong sense of religion in a person’s life can be related to a lower
sense of anxiety towards the death. Although there has been no association discovered between
religiosity and death anxiety, it has also been shown that death anxiety tends to be
lower in individuals who regularly attend religious meetings or gatherings. On a recent
study, one hundred and sixty-five church participants have been asked to fill out the "Intrinsic
Religious Motivation Scale, the Revised Death Anxiety Scale" and the results were analyzed
using factor analyses, Pearson correlation, and linear and quadratic regression. All found
an inverse relationship between intrinsic religious motivation and death anxiety. In
short, the more religious you are, the less anxious you are about death because you may
associate death with another beginning that is promised through many religions. The study
also found that gender did not have an effect on religiosity and total death anxiety.
Cultural segregation In a study done by the University of Padova,
it has been shown that those who have death anxiety are more likely to think of their
cultural group as somehow different from other groups. A certain cultural group when faced
with the question of death will humanize their own group and in turn, dehumanize other cultural
groups. An example that shows if a person's culture
influences death anxiety is the study done by Larry Cameron Menyweather-Woods from University
of Nebraska - Lincoln. This study investigated whether world view, racial socialization and
religion influence the death anxiety and death attitude of black American men ages 19–35
and 65 and older. These men either graduated from high school, attended and/or graduated
from college, or attended Technical School and experienced the death of a loved one.
The five demographic variables that were used to test spuriousness to the relationships
are income, age, education, area reared, and present residence. The contrast of the two
age ranges, 19-35 and 65 and older, showed the relationship and potential value of the
process of racial socialization and the presence of predominate world view which is Africentric.
Even though the men aged 19–35 were well educated and urban born as well as urban reared,
the older group had a higher value for life and less tension or anxiety about death. The
younger group is assumed to possess a higher level of anxiety and lesser value for life
because of their lack of and/or small knowledge of racial socialization and world view. In
conclusion of the study, the influence of racial socialization, world view, and religion,
were significant in predicting the relationship with the various dependent variables. Religion
was the predominant predictor in the understanding of death acceptance or attitude, but the influence
of racial socialization and world view were also significant contributors. World view
and religion were dominant predictors in the understanding of death anxiety and racial
socialization was a significant contributor. Children
The earliest documentation of the fear of death has been found in children as young
as age 5. Psychological measures and reaction times were used to measure fear of death in
young children. Recent studies that assess fear of death in children use questionnaire
rating scales. There are many tests to study this including The Death Anxiety Scale for
Children developed by Schell and Seefeldt. However the most common version of this test
is the revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children. The FSSC-R describes specific fearful stimuli
and children are asked to rate the degree to which the scenario/item makes them anxious
or fearful. The most recent version of the FSSC-R presents the scenarios in a pictorial
form to children as young as 4. It is called the Koala Fear Questionnaire. The fear studies
show that children’s fears can be grouped into five categories. One of these categories
is death and danger. This response was found amongst children age 4 to 6 on the KFQ, and
from age 7 to 10. Death is the most commonly feared item and remains the most commonly
feared item throughout adolescence. A study of 90 children, aged 4–8, done by
Virginia Slaughter and Maya Griffiths showed that a more mature understanding of the biological
concept of death was correlated to a decreased fear of death. This indicates that it is helpful
to teach children about death, in order to alleviate the fear.
Relationship between adult attachment and death anxiety
There has been much literature that supports the existence of a correlation between one's
state of coping skills, mental health, emotions and cognitive reactions to stressful events,
and a one's ability to regulate affect concerning one's death anxiety. A series of tests determined
that significantly high levels of death anxiety tend to occur in close relationships with
an intimate partner. Sexes
The connection between death anxiety and the sex one belongs to appears to be strong. Studies
show that females tend to have more death anxiety than males. Thorson and Powell did
a study to investigate this connection, and they sampled men and women from 16 years of
age to over 60. The Death Anxiety Scale showed higher mean scores for women than for men.
Moreover, researchers believe that age and culture could be major influences in why women
score higher on death anxiety scales than men.
Through the evolutionary period, a basic method was created to deal with death anxiety and
also as a means of dealing with loss. Denial is used when memories or feelings are too
painful to accept and are often rejected. By maintaining that the event never happened,
rather than accepting it, allows an individual more time to work through the inevitable pain.
When a loved one dies in a family, denial is often implemented as a means to come to
grips with the reality that the person is gone. Closer families often deal with death
better than when coping individually. As society and families drift apart so does the time
spent bereaving those who have died, which in turn leads to negative emotion and negativity
towards death. Women, who are the child bearers and are often the ones who look after children
hold greater concerns about death due to their caring role within the family. It is this
common role of women that leads to greater death anxiety as it emphasize the ‘importance
to live’ for her offspring. Although it is common knowledge that all living creatures
die, many people do not accept their own mortality, preferring not to accept that death is inevitable,
and that they will one day die . Age
It is during the years of young adulthood that death anxiety most often begins to become
prevalent. However, during the next phase of life, the middle age adult years, death
anxiety peaks at its highest levels when in comparison to all other age ranges throughout
the lifespan. Surprisingly, levels of death anxiety then slump off in the old age years
of adulthood. This is in contrast with most people’s expectations, especially regarding
all of the negative connotations younger adults have about the elderly and the aging process.
Measuring death anxiety There are many ways to measure death anxiety
and fear. Katenbaum and Aeinsberg devised three propositions for this measurement. From
this start, the ideologies about death anxiety have been able to be recorded and their attributes
listed. Methods such as imagery tasks to simple questionnaires and apperception tests such
as the Stroop test enable psychologists to adequately determine if a person is under
stress due to death anxiety or suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Lester
attitude death scale was developed in 1966 but not published until 1991 until its validity
was proven. By measuring the general attitude towards death and also the inconsistencies
with death attitudes, participants are scaled to their favorable value towards death.
See also Afterlife
Eschatology Mortality salience
References
External links http:www.freudfile.org/
http:www.erikson.edu/ http:www.ernestbecker.org/
http:www.mohammadsamirhossain.com/ http:www.heidegger-gesellschaft.de/
http:www.meaning.ca/ http:www.psychologytoday.comthe-big-questionsdeath-anxiety-increases-relative-dehumanization