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The Journal of Psychology:

Interdisciplinary and Applied
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The Fear of Death and the Fear

of Dying
a a
Lora-Jean Collett & David Lester
a
Department of Psychology, Wellesley College and
Suicide-Prevention and Crisis Service, Buffalo
Published online: 04 Nov 2012.

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,
179-181, DOI: 10.1080/00223980.1969.10543496

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1969.10543496

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 Published as a separate and in The Journal of Psychology, 1969, 72, 179-181.

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
Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 08:54 28 September 2013

Investigators of attitudes toward death have realized the need for stan-
dardized 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 investi-
gated 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 respec-
tively.2
The items were given to the Ss who were required to indicate their agree-
ment 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 14-203.
2 A copy of the scale may be obtained from The National Auxiliary Publications
Service. Order NAPS Document No. 004-18 from ASIS National Auxiliary Publica-
tions 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
 180 JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

total score for the subscale to which the item belonged. All items whose cor-
relations were not significant at the .10 level of significance (i.e., the corre-
lation 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
Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 08:54 28 September 2013

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, two-
tailed 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 -.78.

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 signifi-
cance at the .05 level (two-tailed test).
5 The interaction terms in analysis of variance were homogeneous (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 con-
trolled 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 differ-
ences 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 com-
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pared 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 be-
tween 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 measure-
ment 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, 27-36.
3. . Fear of death of suicidal persons. Ps ychol. Rep., 1967, 20, 1077-1078 .
4. SARNOFF, 1., & CORWIN, S. M . Castration anxiety and the fear of death. J. Per-
sonal., 1959, 27, 274-285.
5. WINER, B. ]. Statistical Principles in Experimental Design. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1962.
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