Encyclopedia
Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Karina Chen and Version 1 by Apurvakumar Pandya.
Death anxiety is anxiety caused by thoughts of one's own death, and is also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death). Death anxiety differs from necrophobia, which is the fear of others who are dead or dying. Psychotherapist Robert Langs proposed three different causes of death anxiety: predatory, predator, and existential. In addition to his research, many theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, and Ernest Becker have examined death anxiety and its impact on cognitive processing. Death anxiety has been found to affect people of differing demographic groups as well, such as men versus women, young versus old, etc. Additionally, there is anxiety caused by death-recent thought-content, which might be classified within a clinical setting by a psychiatrist as morbid and/or abnormal. This classification pre-necessitates a degree of anxiety which is persistent and interferes with everyday functioning. Lower ego integrity, more physical problems and more psychological problems are predictive of higher levels of death anxiety in elderly people perceiving themselves close to death. Death anxiety can cause a person to become extremely timid or distressed when discussing anything to do with death. Findings from one systematic review demonstrated that death anxiety features across several mental health conditions. One meta-analysis of psychological interventions targeting death anxiety showed that death anxiety can be reduced using cognitive behavioral therapy.
Death anxiety is an unavoidable common phenomenon in our lives across cultures and religions. It is multidimensional and explained by different theoretical frameworks. Death anxiety can have negative impacts on wellbeing. Death is an inevitable experience that generates a reduced sense of safety and stronger fear (Alkozei et al. 2019).
- death anxiety
- universality
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References
- Lester, David. 1994. The Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale. In Death Anxiety Handbook: Research, Instrumentation, and Application. Edited by Robert A. Neimeyer. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, pp. 45–60.
- Michael, Scott T., and C. R. Snyder. 2005. Getting unstuck: The roles of hopes, finding meaning, and rumination in the adjustment to bereavement among college students. Death Studies 29: 435–58.
- Juhl, Jacob, Clay Routledge, Jamie Arndt, Constantine Sedikides, and Tim Wildschut. 2010. Fighting the future with the past: Nostalgia buffers existential threat. Journal of Research in Personality 44: 309–14.
- Neimeyer, Robert A., and Kenneth M. Chapman. 1980. Selfhdeal discrepancy and fear of death: Testing an existential hypothesis. OMEGA-Journal of Death and Dying 11: 233–40.
- Rogers, Carl Ransom. 1980. A Way of Being. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
- Kelly, George A. 1955. The Psychology of Personal Constructs. vol. 1. A theory of personality. vol. 2. Clinical diagnosis and psychotherapy. New York: W. W. Norton.
- Taylor, Shelley E., and Jonathon D. Brown. 1988. Illusions and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin 103: 193–210.
- Taylor, Shelley E., Rebecca L. Collins, Laurie A. Skokan, and Lisa G. Aspinwall. 1989. Maintaining positive illusions in the face of negative information: Getting the facts without letting them to get you. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 8: 114–29.
- Higgins, E. Tory. 1987. Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review 94: 319–40.
- Antonowski, Aaron. 1979. Health, Stress and Coping. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Frankl, Viktor E. 1963. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
- Maddi, Salvatore R. 1970. The search for meaning. In Nebraska Symposium of Motivation. Edited by William J. Arnold and Monte M. Page. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 137–86.
- Becker, Ernest. 1973. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press.
- Gilliland, Jack C., and Donald I. Templer. 1986. Relationship of death anxiety scale factors to subjective states. Omega 16: 155–67.
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