Collaborative Research: Theoretical Extensions to Enhance Understanding of the Impact of Awareness of Death

对死亡的意识沉重地压在人类的头脑上。死亡是一个普遍的现实，也是人们关心的大多数当代问题的核心，如医疗保健，犯罪，恐怖主义和气候变化。 此外，媒体每天提醒人们生命的脆弱性。恐怖管理理论解释了人们如何科普死亡带来的心理威胁。人们这样做是因为他们把自己看作是一个有目的的世界的有价值的贡献者，而不仅仅是死后将不再存在的动物。但是，人们为了心理安全而坚持的有目的的世界的版本因人而异。因此，当死亡离我们很近的时候，人们会对那些与自己有共同信仰的人更加积极，而对那些信奉不同信仰的人，比如其他文化的成员，则更加消极。研究表明，这些倾向如何助长偏见、群体间冲突和恐怖主义。最近的研究表明，死亡的想法如何也会导致过度的物质主义，魅力型领导的吸引力，从一个疏远？的自己的身体，强迫症倾向，恐惧症，和超自然的信仰。这些拟议中的研究将探讨死亡、焦虑感和自我观之间的联系如何影响对死亡想法的防御反应。计划中的研究也将是第一个评估死亡对那些死亡是一个更生动的现实的人的影响可能不同于它对那些与死亡接触较少的人的影响的可能性。为了研究这一问题，拟议的研究将调查死亡的想法对那些密切接触死亡的人的影响，特别是那些需要临终关怀的人，那些提供这种护理的人，以及那些参加过死亡意识课程的人，并将这种影响与那些没有与死亡亲密接触的人的影响进行比较。 拟议中的研究将检验这样一个预测，即与死亡更直接的对抗会导致人们更多地将死亡视为生命过程的一部分，从而减少防御性和死亡与焦虑的关联，并增加死亡与自我的关联。其结果应该是减少或消除通常与死亡想法相关的文化防御性判断（例如，对来自其他文化的人的不信任减少）。这项拟议中的研究将有助于阐明年轻人和那些死亡是一个更迫在眉睫的现实的人思考和科普死亡的方式。通过这样做，这项工作可能会为各行各业的人提出更好的方法来处理死亡的前景。除了这个社会目标，这项工作更直接的影响将是帮助培训研究生谁协助这项研究。

The awareness of mortality weighs heavily on the human mind. Death is a universal reality and one that is central to most contemporary issues people care about, such as healthcare, crime, terrorism, and climate change. In addition, the media exposes people daily to reminders of the fragility of life. Terror management theory explains how people cope with the psychological threat death poses. People do so by viewing themselves as valued contributors to a purposeful world rather than as mere animals that will no longer exist upon death. But the version of a purposeful world people cling to for psychological security varies greatly from person to person. Consequently, when death is close to mind, people become more positive toward others who share their own beliefs and more negative toward those who espouse different beliefs, such as members of other cultures. Studies have shown how these tendencies contribute to prejudice, intergroup conflict, and terrorism. More recent studies have shown how thoughts of death can also contribute to excessive materialism, the appeal of charismatic leaders, alienation from one?s own body, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, phobias, and supernatural beliefs. These proposed studies will examine how associations among death, feelings of anxiety, and views of the self affect these defensive responses to thoughts of death. The planned studies will also be the first to assess the possibility that the effects of thinking about death in people for whom death is a more vivid reality might differ from the way it affects those who have less close contact with death. To examine this issue, the proposed studies will investigate the impact of thoughts of death on persons who have closely encountered death, specifically those in need of hospice care, those who provide such care, and those who have been through death awareness courses, and compare this impact with the impact on those without such intimate experiences with death. The proposed studies will test the prediction that more direct confrontation with death leads people to construe death more as part of their life process, thereby decreasing defensiveness and the association of death with anxiety, and increasing the association of death with self. The result should be a reduction or elimination in the kind of culturally defensive judgments that are normally associated with thoughts of death (e.g., less distrust of people from other cultures). The proposed research will help elucidate the way both young adults and people for whom death is a more imminent reality think about and cope with thoughts of death. In so doing, this work may suggest better ways for people from all walks of life to deal with the prospect of mortality. In addition to this societal goal, the more immediate impact of this work will be to help train the graduate students who assist in this research.