The Research On Undergraduates' Death Anxiety And Its Relationships With Self-Worth

Death Anxiety is a feeling of dread, tension, apprehension, distress when one expects the impact of the fact of death, the process of dying and what happens after death on one's self, important others, and the relationship between oneself and important others. Over the last 50 years, there have been achieved important developments in this field especially on instruments. Compared with those researches abroad our study appears very weak. The purposes of this study were to development undergraduates' death anxiety questionnaire and explore the characteristics of undergraduates' death anxiety. In addition, the relationship between death anxiety and self-worth was discussed by using of Self-Worth Scale.According to the review of previous researches on death anxiety, analysisof open-ended measures, and interview with undergraduates, this study puts forward its own theoretical hypothesis on death anxiety. And a formal questionnaire of undergraduates' death anxiety is formed after primary test and relevant analysis. The present study investigated death anxiety of 861 undergraduates, and the relationship between death anxiety and self-worth of 342 undergraduates. The result suggests that:(1) The self-made questionnaire is of good reliability and validity. Adopting the method of factor analysis, we conclude our research with the five dimensions for global death anxiety: fear of uncertainty, fear of loss of self-control, fear of affective impact, fear of loss of self-Fulfillment, fear of interpersonal burden.(2) As a whole, there is a significant gender difference in death anxiety...