Afterlife Beliefs and Death Anxiety: An Exploration of the Relationship between Afterlife Expectations and Fear of Death in an Undergraduate Population

Rose, Brigid M.; O’Sullivan, Michael

doi:10.2190/rv40-6nbr-66gf-ujmu

Cited by 36 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The results supported the first hypothesis that females would have higher death anxiety overall than males, as gender reached significance in the independent-measures t-test. These results support those of the existing death anxiety literature (Russac et al, 2007;Rose & O'Sullivan, 2002;Harding et al, 2005;Pierce et al, 2007;Keller et al, 1984;Tomer et al, 2000;Fortner & Neimeyer, 1999;and Davis et al, 1983). Placed in a practical context, these findings suggest that different therapeutic approaches for men and women may be beneficial when death is concerned.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…A gender effect has also been a consistent finding in death anxiety research, with women tending to report significantly higher levels of death anxiety than men (Russac et al, 2007). Rose and O'Sullivan (2002) found this effect when undergraduate women scored higher on the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS; Templer, 1970) than undergraduate men. Harding, Flannelly, Weaver, and Costa (2005) found that women in their sample of 130 Episcopal parishioners had higher DAS scores than men across age groups; women also had higher DAS scores than men in the study by Pierce, Cohen, Chambers, and Meade (2007) investigating the impact of religious variables and gender on death anxiety in students.…”

Section: Death Anxiety and Gendermentioning

confidence: 70%

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How Gender and Self-Esteem Impact Death Anxiety Across Adulthood

Jackson¹

2008

PsiChiJournal

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D eath is one of the few guarantees of human existence, and yet is one of the greatest mysteries of life. The unknown aspect of death, combined with its inevitability and universality, results in some measure of death anxiety for much of humanity. Death anxiety, its various aspects, and the factors that contribute to and correlate with it have been the subject of numerous research studies over the past few decades, which have uncovered a number of consistent predictors of death anxiety, including age, gender, and self-esteem. The goal of the present study is to further investigate the impact of these variables on death anxiety and to uncover any interactions that may occur between them. Death Anxiety and Age According to Russac, Gatliff, Reece, and Spottswood (2007), death anxiety literature consistently demonstrates an age effect, which "refers to the fact that young adults often report higher levels of concern over mortality issues than older adults" (p. 549). In their own experiments investigating the relationship between death anxiety and age, using both the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale-Revised (CL-R; Lester, 1994, as cited in Russac et al.) and the Revised Death Anxiety Scale (RDAS; Thorson & Powell, 1994), Russac et al. found death anxiety to be highest in the 20's and lowest in old age (65+ years). In his unpublished dissertation investigating the demographic and socio-cultural variables impacting death anxiety, Scovel (1999) also found that older participants reported less fear of death than younger participants. Thorson and Powell (1994) found a negative linear relationship between age and death anxiety during the development of the RDAS, as an ANOVA revealed significant differences between young adults (18-20 years), adults (21-36 years), and the two older age groups combined (37-88 years). In a different study, Thorson and Powell (2000) found that age correlated negatively with death anxiety and depression and positively with religiosity; the young scored lower on the Intrinsic Religious Motivation scale (IRM; Hoge, 1972, as cited in Thorson & Powell, 2000) and higher on the RDAS than the old. Rasmussen and Brems (1996) tried to tease apart the distinction between age and psychosocial maturity in an attempt to better understand the age effects associated with death anxiety. After distributing the DAS and the Constantinople Inventory of Psychosocial Development (CIPD; Constantinople, 1973, as cited in

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Death Anxiety and Gendermentioning

confidence: 70%

How Gender and Self-Esteem Impact Death Anxiety Across Adulthood

Jackson¹

2008

PsiChiJournal

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“…Some of the Muslim participants indicated that they did not know whether they were good Muslims or not and therefore were unsure of their ultimate fate -if they would go to heaven or hell. Thus, in line with Rose and O'Sullivan (2002), it is the reward expectation of afterlife rather than a mere belief in it that is associated with low death anxiety. Even if a person believes in life after death but the person also happens to expect to encounter punishment and not reward, such a person would display much higher death anxiety than even those who do not believe in an afterlife.…”

Section: Death Anxiety: the Fear Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 82%

How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying

Gire¹

2014

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

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“…Because the college years are often very influential on attitude formation, several studies have focused on undergraduate students (Butt, Overholser, & Danielson, 2003;Domino, Kempton, & Cavender, 1996-97;Horsfall, Alcocer, Duncan, & Polk, 2001;Rose & O'Sullivan, 2002;Wade & Anglin, 1987;Weiss, 1996;Wooddell & Kaplan, 1999-2000. These studies have identified five types of factors that may influence individuals' attitudes about the appropriateness of using active euthanasia, passive euthanasia, and physician-assisted death in situations of terminally ill, irreversibly painful patients.…”

Section: Factors Influencing End-of-life Treatment Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

First-Year College Students' Attitudes about End-of-Life Decision-Making

Weiss

Lupkin

2010

Omega (Westport)

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This study analyzes attitudes about treatment of the terminally ill among a group of first-year undergraduate students--a cohort that was in high school when intense publicity and extensive political and judicial involvement in the Terri Schiavo case occurred. Data for the study were collected by structured personal interviews with 201 randomly selected, first-year students in the first half of fall semester, 2005. Students clearly make distinctions in the propriety of active euthanasia, passive euthanasia, and physician-assisted death. Presented with a situation of a terminally ill patient in considerable pain, 65.1% of the students supported or strongly supported withdrawal of life-sustaining technology (passive euthanasia), 34.3% supported the physician providing the means of death to the patient (physician-assisted death), and 28.3% supported the physician actually administering a lethal injection (active euthanasia). A review of the literature of correlates of euthanasia attitudes in a variety of samples produced five potential types of influences: 1) general philosophical and religious beliefs; 2) fears about one's own death and dying process; 3) amount of information about and exposure to the issue of euthanasia; 4) characteristics of the community in which one lives; and 5) certain personal background characteristics. These categorical types produced 19 specific variables that were potentially related to euthanasia attitudes. The strongest predictor of attitudes varied among the three types of euthanasia, but political party affiliation had the most overall influence. Students self-identifying as Democrats were more likely than those self-identifying as Republicans to support euthanasia.

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Afterlife Beliefs and Death Anxiety: An Exploration of the Relationship between Afterlife Expectations and Fear of Death in an Undergraduate Population

Cited by 36 publications

References 20 publications

How Gender and Self-Esteem Impact Death Anxiety Across Adulthood

How Gender and Self-Esteem Impact Death Anxiety Across Adulthood

How Death Imitates Life: Cultural Influences on Conceptions of Death and Dying

First-Year College Students' Attitudes about End-of-Life Decision-Making

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