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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Cellander (talk | contribs) at 21:04, 23 November 2021. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 September 2020 and 17 November 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rmalexandre (article contribs).


Review

Few comments on formatting. Refs are not usually place in the headings but inline with the text. Other wikis are not really reliable sources. This guideline goes over what qualifies WP:MEDRS. All the best --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:42, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks James. I shall welcome if u pen through it directly or via any other experienced editor. Thank u again.Shoovrow (talk) 06:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another good source is WP:MEDMOS and WP:MOS. Some of the caps need work in the section headings. Have shortened the headings. Hope you don't mind. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:50, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Its good, my friend. I tried to implement ur advices too! Keep up the good work!Shoovrow (talk) 06:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The lead of this article could give a better description of what death anxiety is. The lead could also include an introduction of what the different sections of the article is about.Avacullen (talk) 20:59, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unease vs. phobia

Currently, the article contradicts itself in the lead, in my opinion. While the NHS definition makes it sound normal, the other sentences conflate the concept with a clinical phobia. I was looking for the Wikipedia article about the general human unease with death. Shouldn't this article be about that, to the exclusion of clinical phobias? Jesanj (talk) 15:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.134.81.110 (talk) 12:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I also felt like the lead was unclear. I agree that the article should be about how death affects the average individual instead of those needing a clinical diagnosis. I think it is acceptable to highlight the difference between the two ideas, but that the wording should be clearer that only a distinction is being made. Hthayerw (talk) 04:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Christians, Muslims and Non-religious Participants

(NPOV Dispute) An analysis of the study as reported at Science and Religion Today shows the chart and accurately states, "While Christians did indeed have a lower death anxiety than the nonreligious, Muslims did not. In fact, their death anxiety was markedly higher than both the other groups." The rating for Christians is slightly above 2; the rating for non-religious is just below 3 and the rating for Muslims is above 4. The article should state that, "death anxiety was markedly higher for Muslims than for Christians or non-religious" as opposed to the incorrect statement that, " Christians scored significantly lower for death anxiety than non-religious and Muslim groups." However, the study only included 18 Muslims as opposed to 54 non-religious and 63 Christians. Also, the study only included university student volunteers and and did not include the myriad of other religions, nor did it break out the non-religious group (e.g. Atheists). As such, I believe the inclusion of this very limited study is unbalanced & dubious however if it's included, it should accurately state the result. Ref http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2009/09/03/is-the-social-function-of-religion-changing/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markbyrn (talk • contribs) 08:37, 7 May 2013‎

Hi Markbyrn! I removed the entire section, because it is just the results of a single study, and as you correctly say, it is only based on 18 Muslims volunteer students. The results could be a reflection of something entirely different. Maybe in Muslim countries, Christians have higher death anxiety than Muslims... (just to mention one example of how these results can be specific for the time and place of the study). Lova Falk talk 11:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Self-contradiction

The lead says that death anxiety "is distinguished from necrophobia", but then proceeds to list necrophobia (which redirects here) as a type of death anxiety. 8ty3hree (talk) 16:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

8ty3hree, you are quite right. The section Necrophobia was inserted after a merge with Necrophobia. However, this merge was nowhere discussed, and I undid it. Lova Falk talk 15:09, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Not all living organisms have been observed to die via senescence

Sections referring to the inevitability of biological death should be changed. Most, but not all organisms are known to eventually die of old age. Hydras are an example.

Religiosity Effect

The religiosity effect section needs attention, but I don't have time to do the research. I've added a contradiction tag. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wshallwshall (talk • contribs) 17:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are some signs of contradictory evidence for death anxiety within religious people, however this could be due to shortcomings within those individual aspects of research. The generally held belief is that belief in religion, or more specifically an afterlife, lowers ones death anxiety. Sources: Aday, 1984; Alvarado, Templer, Bresler, and Thomas-Dobson, 1995; Minean and Brush, 1980; Gibbs and Achterberg-Lewis, 1978; Templer, 1972; Wittkowski and Baumgartner, 1977; Young and Daniels, 1980; Flannelly, K. J. et al, 2006. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.240.229.67 (talk) 16:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think high levels of death anxiety drives people towards religion and then once they've assimilated the religious views they have very low death anxiety. BlueBerryWizard (talk) 12:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The quote from Ellis, L.; Wahab, E. A.; Ratnasingan, M. (2013). "Religiosity and fear of death: A three‐nation comparison" is misleading as the study seems fatally flawed. The survey is of college students (a highly unrepresentative group in this context) from three countries that are predominantly either Christian or Muslim--Abrahamic mainstream. Given that neither Hinduism or (religious) Buddhism seem to be represented (I don't have credentials for accessing the paper), or indeed Judaism, the general scope of "religiosity" seems not to have been properly addressed. At best these results should be attributed to "Muslim and Christian religiosity of college students"...raising the question of whether there is anything of value worth reporting here. --174.7.56.10 (talk) 19:33, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It may have been a different quote when this comment was originally left, but the current quote in the article (A 2012 study involving Christian and Muslim college students from the US, Turkey, and Malaysia found that their religiosity was positively correlated with an increased fear of death) is a straightforward description of what the study concluded, with no additional interpretation or attempted extrapolation to other age groups or religions. The second paragraph merely discusses a second study that draws the opposite conclusion. I actually am more bothered by this paragraph than the initial quote, as it makes some somewhat sweeping generalizations in Wikipedia's voice yet is still only supported by what appears to be a single study. I do agree that the general scope of "religiosity" could be investigated in much more depth, but at least this current version of the article does not appear to contradict itself. I've gone ahead and removed the tag. CThomas3 (talk) 22:11, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing "Personal Meanings" Section

I found this section a bit redundant and not very specific, so I thought it might be a good idea to reword it to enhance flow and readability. I also included an example of a positive outlook on death, the "rippling" effect, cited in Irvin D. Yalom's book "Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death." Let me know what you think! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blumae (talk • contribs) 16:15, 20 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is this line suggesting that the majority of people think they are biologically immortal?

"Although it is common knowledge that all living creatures die, many people do not accept their own mortality, preferring not to accept that death is inevitable, and that they will one day die."

Is this sentence seriously suggesting that most people think they won't die? I think the number of people who've seriously thought they were never going to die, that they are physically immortal, has been a very extreme minority. I think practically everyone accepts and knows they're going to die, but whether they are at ease with that depends upon what they believe comes after death for them or not.

I bet if you polled people on whether they're going to die or not pretty much all of them will say that they will inevitably die. I guess maybe a few will think they will discover the philosopher's stone beforehand or if they are a materialist they might think they will have their mind-uploaded and a few might think they are immortals already for who knows what eccentric reasons?

...is that sentence just trying to say in an awkward way that people believe they will continue on in some way after death? If so, that's not the same as thinking one will never die. Such people think they will in fact die and that death is inevitable but they don't think death is the complete annihilation of them.

What exactly is even meant there. I am not sure I understand it. BlueBerryWizard (talk) 12:21, 8 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Many" does not equate with "majority, most".
Death is not something we like to consider. We have to deal with it enough as it is. We usually want to defy it to the bitter end. You could say the terror drives some of us crazy. The truth is, as perhaps the one sapient species on Earth, we're too smart for our own good. We are the only ones who dream of immortality. --juunannio (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What are the sources for what you say? The "truth" what? Someone gave you an "illumination"? Don't do original research, this is an encyclopaedia. Sources can be biased, like Sigmund Freud that assumed everyone thought the same things he thought without having any real statistics, but still sources are the only allowed informations we can write here. Personal thoughts, deductions and reasonings aren't encyclopedic. 79.30.206.204 (talk) 04:30, 9 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Citation number 7 has a link that does not function. Also, the domain history shows that this was a blog which is not a reputable source. This should be noted or edited. Hdormerod (talk) 00:47, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fear of death?

What about moving the article to fear of death and broadening the scope a bit?

Afaik there's no article on fear of death in general despite its significance and the wikilink redirects to this page.

Alternatively a new article could be created and this page constrained to an abnormal level of fear of death.

--Fixuture (talk) 14:29, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adam Smith

Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments theorizes, in the first chapter, that the fear of death comes from our sympathizing, or having compassion for, dead bodies. This theory, which was probably influential, should probably be included, but I am not sure in which part of the article. Thiagovscoelho (talk) 14:20, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

New Section Added/Information added to lead

I made a few changes. First I added a couple sentences to the lead to better summarize the rest of the article. After doing some additional research and seeing there wasn't any existing articles, I thought a new section on death acceptance as it relates to death anxiety would be beneficial.

CaptainKiser (talk) 18:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New Section Added

I added a brief section about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted levels of death anxiety among different populations. There is a lot of literature out there about this topic and I added a few sources that I thought were informative. I thought it would be useful to add a section like this since we have seen such a big uptick in death anxiety as a result of the pandemic. Cellander (talk) 14:04, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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