A formulation of death acceptance involving two components, confrontation and integration, is presented and discussed in the light of the literature on death attitudes. A proposed scale (Klug Death Acceptance Scale) to measure the two-component concept is also provided, including data on the scale's reliability and validity, along with some suggested norms. The contribution of this research is the clarification of the theoretical rationale for a multi-dimensional approach to death acceptance, an operationalization of the theory, and a proposed scale to measure it. Additional research on diverse populations, and a variety of measurement approaches, is needed to further establish the reliability and validity of the instrument.
Dickstein's (1972) 30-item Death Concern Scale was developed as a measure of the extent to which an individual consciously contemplates death and evaluates it negatively. Scoring procedures provide a single score as a measure of death concern. Dickstein's definition of death concern and an examination of the items support the authors' contention that two aspects of death concern are being measured. Factor analyses of the item scores of 671 college students indicated the presence of two distinct factors in the Death Concern Scale. One factor represented Dickstein's “conscious contemplation of death” component, the other the “negative evaluation” component. The results of the factor analyses corroborated the subjective judgments of 5 independent judges and the authors of this article. It is suggested that the usefulness of this instrument may be enhanced by the utilization of separate scores for each of these two factors.
In a previous article it was concluded that Dickstein's Death Concern Scale was a measure of two components, the conscious contemplation of death and the negative evaluation of death. In this study, factor analyses of 2 sets of data from church-going adults support this conclusion. To clarify the nature of these components Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and a set of questions about acceptance of death were administered to the same subjects. The results support the contention that negative evaluation and death anxiety are very similar constructs. The nature of conscious contemplation is less clear.
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