LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Death Anxiety
built 213 days ago
Examined religiosity, as measured by church affiliation and attendance, in relation to 143 bereaved mothers' and 129 bereaved fathers' scores on the Grief Experience Inventory developed by C. M. Sanders et al (1985), including death anxiety. Using a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) to control for social desirability, high church attendance for both groups had a significant inverse relationship with death anxiety. An inverse relationship ... existed for the same mothers' and fathers' adjusted mean scores on the scales of anger and guilt. Mothers who attended church more frequently also reported significantly less loss of control, depersonalization, and optimism/despair than mothers who attended less frequently. This result is consistent with A. Da Silva and M. A. Schork's (1984-1985) research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved) (unassigned)
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Robert Kastenbaum suggests that people might not need a special theory for death anxiety and fear. Instead, they can make use of mainstream research in the field of life span development. Anxiety may have roots in people's physical being, but it is through personal experiences and social encounters that they learn what might harm them and, therefore, what they should fear. These fears ... bear the marks of sociohistorical circumstances. For example, fear of the dead was salient in many preliterate societies throughout the world, while fear of being buried alive became widespread in nineteenth-century Europe and America. In modern times many people express the somewhat related fear of being sustained in a persistent vegetative state between life and death.
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"We were able to improve depression symptoms and lessen death anxiety, which led to better spiritual well-being in support group participants," says Dr. Miller. "We consider this pilot work as a promising approach, but a lot of work needs to be done to fully meet patients' needs at this most difficult time in their lives."
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Reconsideration of this result argues that the presence of death anxiety is not dependent upon social learning, and that either high or low levels of theism leads to the resolution of anxiety problems. This outcome forces a contrast between religion generally and theism specifically, refuting their conventional equation. Experimental curvilinearity suggests that non-theistic or implicit religions both exist and are theoretically productive for the mainstream concerns in the study of religion. This outcome counters contrary claims from conventionalists who deem implicit religion as mere analogy or a peripheral subclass of little theoretical importance.
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In an attempt to establish a common linkage between death anxiety and belief in afterlife, the author used variables such as respondent sex, race, and religiosity. The research sample was composed of 181 students from a southern university. For the purpose of this study, religiosity was divided into three separate categories: 1) church membership; 2) frequency of church attendance; and 3) self-reported intensity of religious beliefs.
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This form of death anxiety, which ... appears to be uniquely human, arises when an individual harms another human being or living organism. These actions mobilize a measure of denial, but mainly arouses guilt and needs for punishment which often operates unconsciously. As a result the offending person unconsciously and unwittingly arranges to harm himself or herself, entirely unaware of the unconscious sources of these self-destructive actions.
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Death Anxiety