As individuals age, they may begin inquiring about the progression of their lives and may begin to realize that death is inevitable; these thoughts may push start them to develop anxieties about it. Along with age, the time spent considering this fact will also vary with one's ethnicity. As people have longer life expectancies, there has been increased attention drawn to age related casualties (Thorson, 1994). The era of the baby boom marked the highest birth rates to date in history, and individuals born during this boom are now approaching retirement age (Fava, 1998). Along with retirement may come the notions of grief (Depaola, 2003); grief that may be followed by anxiety, specifically death anxiety (Cicirelli, 1998). The fears that these adults have about death can often spill into how they feel about other factors, including the quality of their lives (Tomer, 2000). Past studies have shown reference to individuals not categorized as being older as also having instances where their death anxiety levels were quite high (Russac, 2007).
The issue of age being a clear indicator of death anxiety is one that remains with high controversy. "Age does not have a high correlation once one discovers a concrete comprehension of death (Neimeyer, 1988). Death is an event that can be defined and divided by many abstracts. Although death is universal, its meanings are endless. In the sense, death is the termination of all parts in an organism, the ending of the connection between mind and body (Maurer, 1996). Some people believe that death takes place when the heart stops beating, while others believe that "death occurs when the subtle consciousness finally leaves the body to go to the next life" (Death & Dying). Although this is in fact true, there have been no prior studies confirming these findings. On the contrary, there have been studies that have shown a negative correlation between the increase in age and levels of death anxiety (Keller, 1984; Neimeyer, 1988).
Over time however, researchers have started to see a different trend. Typically, higher levels of anxiety are found in younger individuals, followed by a sharp incline in middle adulthood which then remains constant until one reaches the elderly stage, when the levels decrease significantly and stabilize (Gessar, 1988).
Ethnicity could also play a primary role in an individual's death anxiety. Currently, there are not many studies that are consistent at proving or disproving this claim. One reason for such inconsistency could be that in prior studies, the effect of ethnicity was not investigated as a sole variable (Bengtson et al., 1977; Davis, 1978). In past years, there was a study conducted in which death levels was measured against one's ethnicity and relation to death. The sample used both men and women from four different ethnicity groups. The results of the study specified that Hispanic and African American participants had higher levels of death anxiety in comparison to the Caucasian and Japanese American participants. Less than two decades later another attempt was made to try to narrow down the difference between one's ethnicity and his/her gender (Cicirelli, 1998).
By using the Multidimensional Fear of Death scale, Cicirelli's results showed that although the Caucasian male participants had higher levels of death anxiety than African American males on one scale (fear of leaving others behind), on another the scale, (which measured anxiety of conscious death) the opposite was true; the African American male participant's levels were higher.
Limitations in the research previously conducted are that the research studies defined death from one abstraction. Different factors can influence one's level of death anxiety and should be taken into consideration. There should be some form of assessment that could better identify what exactly is causing an individual to have a decrease or spike in their anxiety levels in correlation to death.
The purpose of this investigation is to draw more attention on the issue that there are not a lot of studies currently out which can prove a correlation between one's level of death anxiety and their age and demographics together. As a continuation of this, one's death anxiety has more to do with his/her ethnicity regardless of age. Prior studies have tried but none have conducted an experiment including all three factors. All of the investigations from previous studies have tried to determine participant's level of death anxiety with two correlations. This investigation will further look at different individuals from all three vantage points (variables) by interpreting the assessments given during the pilot study. This assessment will be confirmed with the results provided by a questionnaire given to the participants. The questionnaire will take into consideration certain factors and extremities which could affect one's natural fear of death. Exposure to death could be a prime example, i.e. measuring high crime neighborhoods to low crime neighborhoods (Immarino, 1975). Results will show that ethnicity is the main factor in death anxiety and the other two variables, although very important, will succumb to it when the factor is present. The reason that ethnicity will play the primary role in determining death anxiety is because with one's ethnicity comes stressors attributed specifically to this. These stressors will in turn cause an individual to have higher stress levels in comparison to another individual of an ethnicity without such stressors. This study is important because once there are clear cut facts on how ethnicities influence death anxiety, measures can be taken to lower this overall correlation.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 300 individuals. Of the participants, 150 were young adults (18-40 years old) and 150 were older adults (over 40 years old+) Participants were recruited by a convenience sampling, from two counties of a particular state. Participants were assigned via random digit dialing as well as from advertisements dispersed both on the web and in person. Participants who completed the questionnaire were reimbursed for their travel expenses, as well as given a 20 dollar voucher. An ideal sample size would include participants from different educational backgrounds. Pilot questions were given before the start of the questionnaire which included general demographic questions that determined one's SES level as well as their levels of general health, anxiety, and depression. Participants who had any form of mental disorder from mild to severe were excluded from the sample due to the fact that they were shortly released after the initial pilot questions. The pilot questions given were able to tell if the participants had any type of mental disorder. The participants who fell into this category were still given the monetary voucher for volunteering their time.
Materials
The Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale is a questionnaire in which participants answer 42 Likert-type questions about themselves and their levels of death anxiety (MFODS; Hoelter, 1979; Neimeyer & Moore, 1994). The questions ranged from having a fear of leaving others behind after death to the fear of the actual way in which one will die. Those 42 questions then break down into subscales measuring one's fear of conscious death by 8 stages. The 8 stages/factors are as followed;
F1: Fear of the Dying Process (ex. I am afraid of a painful death.)
F2: Fear of the Dead (ex. I am afraid of cemeteries.)
F3: Fear of Being Destroyed (ex. I am a registered organ donor. [Reverse scored])
F4: Fear for Significant Others (ex. I am afraid of my spouse dying.)
F5: Fear of the Unknown (ex. I am afraid of going to heaven/hell.)
F6: Fear of Conscious Death (ex. I am afraid to die by drowning.)
F7: Fear for the Body after Death (ex. I am afraid of how my corroded body will look.)
F8: Fear of Premature Death (ex. I am afraid of dying before my parents/ children.)
Participants responded to each question on a scale from 1 "strongly agree" with the factors, and 5 which is "strongly disagree". The test-retest correlation of the total Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale is .85 (Neimeyer & Moore, 1994). The internal reliability coefficients for the eight factors are .75 (Hoelter, 1979; Walkey, 1982). There was also a good predictive validity as well.
Participants also completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), which measures anxiety based on 16 Likert-type questions. Each of the 16 questions can be answered by a number ranging from 0 to 4, with 0 indicating a small amount of anxiety, and 4 indicating a high level of anxiety. The ASI's test-retest reliability at r=.74 (Reiss et al., 1986). The internal consistency coefficients range from .82 to .91 (Peterson & Reiss, 1993), and has a good predictive validity (Reiss, 1991).
Procedure
The participants were recruited by a convenience sampling procedure which resulted in a random percentage of age and gender as well as ethnicity. Participants were informed of this study by fliers and advertisements posted online as well as throughout the two counties in which the study surveyed. Participants were also selected through random digital dialing, a source which was provided by the local telephone company database. After the participants signed the informed consent document and had any questions about the study answered, the pilot questions were administered. The pilot questions contained demographic information such as race, age, sex, profession, marital status and number of children. Another set of questions were asked to determine the participant's mental health status and to see if they were on any type of medication. To measure this, the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale was used. The WEMWBS showed good content validity and high test-retest reliability r=0.83 (Tennant, 2006). After the pilot questions were completed, the MFOD and ASI scales were administered. The study was based on a correlational cross-sectional design. Two groups participated; those in the younger adult category and those in the older adult category. The factors consisted of gender, ethnicity, and the highest level of education completed. The procedure will be conducted in a room with just the individual. Participants will be handed an unsealed envelope with their packet and be told to seal the document upon completing the assignment. Once the task is done, the participants are free to leave the room.
Results
The initial hypothesis of this study was that levels of death anxiety would vary significantly with ethnicity despite one's age group. A t-test was used to analyze the differences between the younger and older groups of participants on a self-reported death anxiety test. Another measure used to support this claim was the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale. This scale compared the death anxiety between two different age groups. There was no considerable difference between the two groups (see Table 1).
To measure whether or not different ethnicities are correlated with death anxiety, an analysis of variance was used (ANOVA). The ANOVA showed that for the majority of the subsections on the MFODS test, Caucasian participants scored lower than all other ethnicities across the board, followed shortly by Asian American participants. The results of each ethnicity were similar within the participants, which can be inferred as age not playing a prime factor. The significance between age groups and ethnicity was not as large as the significance between two ethnicities as a whole. Ethnicities that are seen as encompassing the minority were the ones that experienced high levels of death anxiety in relation to the MFOD scale average (see Table 2).
Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations: Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale
____________________________________________________________________
Measure Mean SD
_____________________________________________________________________
MFODS (young n=150) XX X.X
MFODS (old n=150) XX X.X
_____________________________________________________________________
Table 2
Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale; Death Anxiety of Different Ethnicities
__________________________________________________________________ ___
Caucasian African American Latino American Asian American F (n=101) (n=68) (n=45) (n=86)
_____________________________________________________________ _
MFODS Total XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
F1-Fear of Dying XX (X.X) XX (X.X)* XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
F2-Fear of the XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
Dead
F3-Fear of Being XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X)* XX (X.X) X
Destroyed
F4-Fear of XX (X.X) XX (X.X)* XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
Significant Other
F5-Fear of the XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X)* X
Unknown
F6-Fear of XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
Consciousness
When Dead
F7-Fear for Body XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X)* X
After Death
F8-Fear of
Premature XX (X.X)* XX (X.X) XX (X.X) XX (X.X) X
Death
______________________________________ ______________________________
*p<.05
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to compare levels of death anxiety between young and old participants of different ethnic groups. The outcome from this investigation gave supporting evidence which showed that age was not a direct correlation with the participants in their overall response to the levels of death anxiety. There was a slight increase preference of males over females but the findings were not significant. Another result from the study indicated that African Americans had higher levels of death anxiety than any of the groups tested. Their anxiety was slightly more than the Latino Americans but more than double that of the Caucasian group. The death anxiety levels of the Asian American group were quite similar with the Caucasian group, but their results fell slightly higher. The achieved results were consistent with the initial hypothesis, which stated that levels of death anxiety would vary significantly with ethnicity despite one's age group.
Upon administering the Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale, the findings from the pilot study gave insight that there were hardly any differences between the sexes of both age groups. This finding supports the previous study completed by Fortner and Neimeyer (1999), which argued that gender is not a proper variable in determining death anxiety. Their study looked at other measures, one being the social economic status of the participants. By including the ages of the participants in the current study, the data significantly contrasted that of an earlier study which claimed that there was no correlation between age and death anxiety (Conte et al., 1982). The research then done did not include participants from different age groups. Not including such can hinder the purity of the results. Non-inclusion of the latter should not give clearance for stating that there is no correlation between the two. In comparing the ethnicities between the participants, the results supplied were also consistent with an older study done which claimed that African Americans had the highest levels of death anxiety in comparison to all other ethnicities (Barresi & Stull, 1993). Strengths of this study contribute to the knowledge base in the sense that until now, no other study has together compared death anxiety to one's age sex and ethnicity. Before now, studies only tried to find significance between two of the variables. Including all three can give an insight in noticing if any of the variable results were confounded because of another variable influencing it.
In addition to looking at the role of ethnicity, another strength of this study is sample size. Having a larger sample size reduces the chance of participant error. With more participants, it is more likely to see a trend either upward or downward in retrospect to the measures being observed. Three hundred participants can in fact be good in the sense that with such a large sample individual differences are more likely to diminish.
A limitation on this current research is the fact that the majority of the results of the study come from self-reported measures. Because of this, there is always going to be the chance that the results are not one hundred percent accurate. In order for this to one day no longer be an issue, upcoming investigators need to create a method that can bypass self-reporting procedures. A possible alternative could be to observe participants in their natural setting such as in the workplace, or home setting i.e. family based, or nursing/ retirement home. Doing such could produce more authentic results. Another limitation is the process of how the participants were selected. Being that the method used was a convenience sampling, the participants involved could possibly not be a direct representation of the population being sampled. This is the case because the study only used participants drawn from two counties of a particular state.
Future studies can extend on the current research by also including the participants self-esteem levels. Self-esteem is known to slightly influence one's level of death anxiety and his/her overall quality of life (Ben-Ari & Findler, 2005). Knowing how an individual falls on the self-esteem scale can further alert medical officials on how to respond on a case by case basis. Putting aside the variables of gender and ethnicity, if more research was available to study death anxiety it could also prove as a significant measure for nursing homes. Therapies could in fact become developed to reduce overall levels amongst all ethnicities. If these levels were lowered there could be possibilities that one's perception on quality of life would increase, causing longer life spans. Lastly, research needs to continue in order for there to be a better understanding of death anxiety and the factors that influence/ inhibit it. Once this is developed, death anxiety levels and the stressors behind it should be come nonexistent.
