Lora-Jean Collett a & David Lester a a Department of Psychology, Wellesley College and

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1 This article was downloaded by: [ ] On: 10 February 2013, At: 16:46 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: The Fear of Death and the Fear of Dying Lora-Jean Collett a & David Lester a a Department of Psychology, Wellesley College and Suicide-Prevention and Crisis Service, Buffalo Version of record first published: 04 Nov To cite this article: Lora-Jean Collett & David Lester (1969): The Fear of Death and the Fear of Dying, The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 72:2, To link to this article: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages

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3 Published as a separate and in The Journal of Psychology, 1969, 72, THE FEAR OF DEATH AND THE FEAR OF DYING'" 1 Department of Psychology, Wellesley College and Suicide-Prevention and Crisis Service, Buffalo LORA-JEAN COLLETT AND DAVID LESTER A. INTRODUCTION Investigators of attitudes toward death have realized the need for standardized measures of the fear of death (2). Sarnoff and Corwin (4), Boyar ( 1), and Lester (3) have devised measures of the fear of death and investigated the reliability and validity of their measures. However, the items in their scales cover a wide variety of themes: fear of dying, fear of being dead, aversion to funerals, and even worry over the death toll on highways. The purpose of the present study was to devise separate measures of death fears, attempting to distinguish between the fear of death from the fear of the process of dying and to differentiate between these fears depending upon whether they are for oneself or for another. B. METHOD The Ss formed an original sample (A) and a replication sample (B) each consisting of 25 female undergraduates. Thirty-eight statements were composed concerning the four fears: fear of death of self, fear of death of others, fear of dying of self, and fear of dying of others. The number of items in each subscale was to, 10, 8, and to respectively.2 The items were given to the Ss who were required to indicate their agreement or disagreement with each item on a 6-point scale ranging from strong agreement (+3) to strong disagreement (-3). C. RESULTS The scores of the Ss in sample A on each item were correlated with the Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on April 9, 1969, and published immediately at 35 New Street, Worcester, Massachusetts. Copyright by The Journal Press. 1 Address reprint requests to David Lester, Suicide-Prevention and Crisis Service, 312 Lafayette Building, Buffalo, New York A copy of the scale may be obtained from The National Auxiliary Publications Service. Order NAPS Document No from ASIS National Auxiliary Publications Service, c/o CCM Information Sciences, Inc., 22 West 34-th Street, New York, New York 10001; remitting in advance $3.00 for photocopies or $1.00 for microfiche. 179

4 180 JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY total score for the subscale to which the item belonged. All items whose correlations were not significant at the.10 level of significance (i.e., the correlation was less than.26) were eliminated. Six items were eliminated as a result." The intercorre1ations between the four subscales were calculated and these ranged from.03 to.58 and were, in general, low especially where the type of fear and the referent of the fear differed. For example, fear of dying of self and fear of death of others had a zero correlation (.03 and -.07 in the two samples), whereas fear of dying of others and fear of death of others had a significant but low correlation (.46 and.40 in the two samples, twotailed p <.05).4 A three-way analysis of variance for repeated measures was carried out on the data (5) with the two samples treated as a replication factor. 5 The terms of the analysis involving the replication factor were all nonsignificant. The largest F-ratio was 1.16 (df = 1,48). The Ss showed a significantly high er fear of death than of dying (F = 46.53; df = 1,48; P <.01). They also showed a significantly greater fear when the self was the referent than when another was the referent (F = 14.74; df = 1,48; P <.01). The interaction of death/dying with self/other was also significant (F = 23.78, df = 1,48; P <.01). The mean scores per item for each of the subscales (a measure used to control for the length of each scale) were fear of death of self,.48; fear of death of others,.59; fear of dying of self,.33; and fear of dying of others D. DISCUSSION The low intercorrclations between the four fears (fear of death of self, fear of dying of self, fear of death of others, and fear of dying of oth ers) indicate the potential usefulness of differentiating these four specific fears rather than indiscriminately grouping all items in the same scale. Such a step would lead to an improvement in available measures of the fear of death. The low correlations may reflect a general death fear which is tapped by all death scales, and in cases where the scales share a common process (death/ dying) or a common referent (self/other) they may reflect this shared object. ;: The test us ed was a one-tailed test of significance. 4 The intercorrelations for the two samples were death self/death others.22 and.26, death self/dying self.24 and.41, death self/dying others.09 and.58, death others/dying self.03 and -.07, death others/dying others.46 and.40, and dying self/dying others.28 and.40. A correlation greater than.39 is necessary for significance at the.05 level (two-tailed test). 5 The interaction terms in analysis of variance were homogeneous (5).

5 LORA-JEAN COLLETT AND DAVID LESTER 181 Of the four fears, fear of dying of others was least feared. In fact for this subscale the mean score was negative, indicating that Ss faced this topic in general rather than avoiding it. The differences in scores on the four scales are not a result of the different lengths of the four scales, since this was controlled for in the analysis of variance by using the mean score per item for each scale and each S. However, the differences could be a result of differences in the strength of the wording of the items of different scales. Such an occurrence would not be of importance when other variables are being compared to scores on the four scales. E. SUMMARY Scales to assess fear of death of self, fear of dying of self, fear of death of others, and fear of dying of others were devised. The low correlations between scores on these scales indicate the potential usefulness of differentiating between these four fears. REFERENCES 1. BOYAR,]. 1. The construction and partial validation of a scale for the measurement of the fear of death. Diu. A bst., 196+, 25, 204l. 2. LESTER, D. Experimental and correlational studies of the fear of death. Psy chol, Bull., 1967, 67, Fear of death of suicidal persons. Psychol. Rep., 1967, 20, SARNOFF, 1., & CORWIN, S. M. Castration anxiety and the fear of death. J. Personal., 1959, 27, WINER, B. ]. Statistical Principles in Experimental Design. New York: McGraw- Hill, Suicide-Prevention and Crisis Service 312 Lafayette Building Buffalo, New York 14203