published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Several studies have attempted to assess the effects of death anxiety upon personality and behavior. However, only recently has research on this topic begun to develop a larger theoretical context within which many behaviors and intrapsychic mechanisms can be explained. The present study was conducted to test the hypothesis that people's symbolic investments, such as religious beliefs and status, are inflated when an individual is faced with events which make their personal mortality salient. Theoretically this inflation would help them buffer their anxieties about death. Subjects were selected for participation on the basis of scores on measures of status concern and religiosity, and were assigned to a mortality salience treatment or control condition. Results suggest limited support for the hypothesis. Though all predictions were not confirmed, some intriguing findings are noted. Implications of these findings are discussed.

his study compares ethnic, age, and gender differences concerning attitudes and behaviors toward death, dying, and bereavement among Caucasian, African, Hispanic, and Asian American adult participants in north Texas with the results of a 1976 study by Kalish and Reynolds on death attitudes and behaviors of Caucasian, African, Mexican, and Japanese American adult participants in Los Angeles, California. A modified version of Kalish and Reynolds' study questionnaire was administered to 526 respondents (164 Caucasian, 100 African, 205 Hispanic, and 57 Asian Americans) recruited from community and church groups. Findings of this study were compared with those of Kalish and Reynolds in specific areas, including experience with death, attitudes toward one's own death, dying, and afterlife, and attitudes toward the dying, death, or grief of someone else. Data was analyzed employing the same statistical tools as those used by Kalish and Reynolds, i.e., chi square calculations, frequencies, percentages, averages, and analyses of variance. As compared with the earlier study, results indicated that this study's participants were less likely to have known as many persons who had died recently or to state they would try very hard to control grief emotions in public. Present study participants were more likely to have visited dying persons, to want to be informed if they were dying and believe that others should be informed when dying, to prefer to die at home, to have made arrangements to donate their bodies or body parts to medicine, to have seriously talked with others about their future deaths, to consider the appropriateness of mourning practices and the comparative tragedy of age of death from a relative standpoint, and to want to spend the final six months of their lives showing concern for others. Between study differences were found in ethnic group, age group, and gender group comparisons. Within study differences in death and dying attitudes were also found in this study among ethnic, age, and gender groups.

A literature study was undertaken to investigate the experience of loss and grief in the different developmental stages, as well as to identify characteristics of loss and grief in the young child. Guidelines have been compiled on how to handle loss and grief in young children. The empirical study comprised of workshop presentations. Through these presentations it was also determined as to whether parents and children would benefit from such workshops, as well as if the information regarding loss and grief addressed the parents’ needs. The empirical study found that parents are ignorant about loss and grief in the young child. However, all the parents had questions about loss and grief. After the workshops parents indicated that they became aware of positive changes in their own behaviour towards their children, and also in that of their children. One of the biggest problems in handling loss and grief in the young child seemed to be open and honest communication. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counseling)

Ninety college students served as subjects in research to investigate possible relationships between fear of death, religious doubt, and child-rearing practices. The following hypotheses were tested: 1) contingent childrearing practices would correlate negatively with religious doubt, 2) religious doubt would correlate positively with fear of death, and 3) contingent child-rearing practices would correlate negatively with fear of death. The second hypothesis was supported. Additional analyses revealed that those who changed religious preference from childhood to the present had lower fear of death scores than those who retained the same beliefs. The sample was also divided into religious and nonreligious groups. The religious group as a whole and religious females were found to have scored significantly higher on paternal contingent punishment. Religious individuals in the total sample also scored significantly higher on parental contingent punishment.

Siu Man Yee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-48). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract (English) --- p.ii / Abstract (Chinese) --- p.iii / List of Tables --- p.vi / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1 / Terror management theory --- p.2 / Socioemotional selectivity theory --- p.6 / "TMT, SST & Grandparenthood" --- p.9 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Method --- p.15 / Participants --- p.15 / Measures --- p.16 / Chinese versions of scales --- p.19 / Procedure --- p.19 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Results --- p.21 / Results: test the hypothesis with whole scale --- p.21 / Results: with FTPS subscales --- p.27 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- DISCUSSION --- p.35 / Death anxiety as a motivating force --- p.35 / Time perspective for the elderly --- p.39 / References --- p.43

Where We Belong is more than a memoir. It is a love story about the untimely death of the oldest of five daughters born to a prominent New Haven, Connecticut family. It is also a tale of hubris, rage and frustration, a Greek tragedy about a man's life as re-examined through the lens of the two weeks his wife spent dying, a tale in which chronic illness and good intentions ensure the death of a loving wife, artist and mother. The journey on which her husband takes the reader explores a health care system oblivious to her plight, her family's unwitting complicity and a 12-step mythology that unfolds while he, her six weeping children and her aging mother helplessly look on. The author endures an agony that dwarfs incentives to lie, learning that people lie out of fear, and genuine grief supplants fear with the stark reality of what we fear most: death. Where We Belong gives voice to the internal dialogue the author encounters when reexamining not just memories, but the accoutrements of memory, as well. It is a voice that addresses his own grandiosity, sentimentalism and self-pity in the face of his wife's death, in addition to those details, circumstances and impressions that speak to the arrogance he brought to the task of being all he thought she and her six children needed him to be. He concludes the task was well beyond him, a realization evoked by the gut wrenching decision to literally "pull the plug" on this heartbreaking tale of reconstituted hope and great promise reduced to rubble by chronic illness, alcoholism, drug addiction and death. Born is the lesson that when we grieve, we are free to be ourselves. When we are free to be ourselves, we are free to love again.

Thesis ( M.A. (Research psychology)) --University of Limpopo, 2012 / This study sought to investigate the relationship of death anxiety to age, gender and religiosity among Africans in a rural South African context. Two hundred participants completed a questionnaire based on demographic variables, death anxiety scales, and a measure of religiosity Results revealed that intrinsic religious motivation was inversely related to all types of death anxiety measured. Furthermore, age was correlated with death anxiety, such that the experience of death anxiety tended to decrease among older subjects. However, there were no gender effects on the experience of death anxiety.

The Primary purpose of this paper is to examine the role and importance of Senior Senators in the US Senate. Many states rely on Senators to bring in federal spending in the form of pork. When states lose their Senior Senator and the power they accumulated through increased tenure, they risk losing certain benefits in terms of pork. We use federal expenditures per dollar of tax and analyze how it is affected by Seniority in the Senate. Population, Income, and unemployment rates in each state were controlled for in our regression analysis. It is concluded that increased tenure significantly increases federal spending to Senators’ states. Though this is statistically significant, we find the effects of losing a Senior Senator to be insignificant in the overall welfare of a state.

Background This thesis addresses the topic of parental bereavement, using a multi-method approach. It aims to add to knowledge about the phenomenon of parental bereavement, outcomes for bereaved parents following the loss of their child, and factors associated with these outcomes. Method An initial literature study and qualitative investigation were carried out. Findings from these informed the choice of quantitative variables to be tested in a group of parents in early and mid-bereavement. Census records were used to provide information on long term health and social outcomes. Results The literature related to the parent’s experience following the death of their child is limited. The qualitative study indicated a variety of factors for testing, related to the circumstances of the loss, continuing bonds with the deceased child, restoration-oriented stressors, for example, employment and relationship problems, and ruminative behaviours. In early bereavement, lower grief levels were found in people who had displayed cognitive restructuring behaviours. Grief and depression were prevalent, and were found to exist independently. Rumination was associated with grief and depression in mid-bereavement. Grief was predicted by depression and self-blame and depression was, in turn, predicted by rumination and education level. Rates of mothers returning to work following the loss of a child in the first year of life were lower than those whose child lived. Mortality rates were up to four times higher in bereaved parents than non-bereaved comparisons, up to 35 years post-loss. Conclusions The loss of a child has ongoing social, emotional and health consequences for parents. Social factors are a particularly important issue, and therapeutic interventions may benefit from reducing negative aspects of coping such as rumination rather than promoting specific coping strategies. Support for bereaved parents should come from a number of sources, in order to address their complex and potentially long-term needs.