The Reversal of Death: Changes in Attitudes Toward Death in Western Societies

Ariès, Philippe

doi:10.2307/2711889

Cited by 54 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…At first glance, this “modern interdiction of death” (Ariès, , p. 12) might lead to the assumption that families rarely talk about death. However, the fact that parents in Western countries may not volunteer information about death does not mean that children do not request this information.…”

Section: How Do Children Acquire Their Understanding Of Death?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Emerging Understanding of Death

Menéndez

Hernandez

Rosengren

2020

Child Dev Perspectives

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Children’s understanding of death has been a topic of interest to researchers investigating the development of children’s thinking and clinicians focusing on how children cope with the death of a loved one. Traditionally, researchers in cognitive development have studied death from a biological perspective. Current research suggests that exploring religious and spiritual conceptualizations might enrich our understanding of how children come to think about death. In this article, we review different methodological approaches that suggest that children form their understanding of death by engaging in conversations with and asking questions of family members, consuming cultural products, and participating in cultural rituals. We provide examples of how children combine different belief systems to form their understanding of death. We conclude by discussing recent research on how death‐related socialization might be related to coping and bereavement after the death of a loved one.

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Section: How Do Children Acquire Their Understanding Of Death?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s Emerging Understanding of Death

Menéndez

Hernandez

Rosengren

2020

Child Dev Perspectives

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“…We argue that these different parental attitudes toward the role of children in death‐related practices creates a different socialization milieu that leads to a different cognitive and affective understanding of death. The focus on concepts of death and practices associated with death as social constructions has a relatively rich background in history and anthropology (Aries, ; Lomnitz, ), but has generally been lacking in psychology, where an emphasis on cultural universals in cognitive development has long prevailed (Shweder, , p. 7). Researchers investigating the socialization of death have generally examined children’s questions and parental responses to death and conducted surveys of various socialization practices.…”

Section: Children's Cognitive Understanding Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embracing Death: Mexican Parent and Child Perspectives on Death

et al. 2019

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A mixed‐method approach was used to explore parent and child perspectives on death in Mexico. Parents’ and children’s death‐related experiences and understanding of death were examined. While all children in this sample displayed a biological understanding of death, older children were less likely to endorse that all living things die. Children also displayed coexistence of beliefs related to death that can be attributed to both their biological and spiritual understanding of death. We also found that older children were more likely to report that a child should feel sad following the death of a loved one. These findings highlight how cultural practices shape the development of cognitive and affective processes related to death.

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“…Foreign observers have been noting the strangeness of things in the U.S. for some time. Jessica Mitford's ( [1963]) well‐known critique predated Philippe Ariès's reflections on the American way of death () but both of these foreign intellectuals observed the peculiarity of the U.S. case in which the modernist “taboo” against death both denied mourning and invented a new funerary ritual that revolved around the embalmed body (Gorer, ). Thomas Laqueur's () recent work notes the American obsession with embalming but still argues for universal, cross‐cultural practices around the “work of the dead.” However, he also documents the extraordinary connection between embalming and American war dead.…”

Section: What If We Took Zombies Seriously? or What If We Took Them mentioning

confidence: 99%

Zombies and a Decaying American Ontology

Dawdy¹

2019

J Historical Sociology

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What would it mean to take zombies seriously? Cultural savants have noted the rise of the zombie in American popular culture in the twenty‐first century. And many scholars have found the zombie useful as a lumbering, empty‐headed metaphor that could signify just about anything. The zombie might look like a loved ovne, but their flesh is rotting and their individualism has tragically withered away. Before I came to zombology, I was already fascinated by an American obsession with preventing the decay of the corpse through an exceptional devotion to embalming. I argue that the intersection of the new zombie‐ism, the rapid decline of embalming, and the mass trauma of 9/11 is significant. Playing with zombies along a spectrum from fright to humor allows Americans to work through not a crisis of meaning, but a crisis of being. The cult of individualism no longer needs a perfect biological body.

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The Reversal of Death: Changes in Attitudes Toward Death in Western Societies

Cited by 54 publications

References 0 publications

Children’s Emerging Understanding of Death

Children’s Emerging Understanding of Death

Embracing Death: Mexican Parent and Child Perspectives on Death

Zombies and a Decaying American Ontology

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