Cognitive structure and death anxiety

Abstract

One goal of thanatology is to study the idiosyncratic belief systems that individuals have regarding the meaning of death. Although more recent multidimensional scales for assessing death anxiety represent an improvement over earlier global scales, both are limited in their ability to measure subtle structural properties of such belief systems. The present paper investigated the feasibility of studying personal meanings of death through the use of the Death Attitude Repertory Test (DART), a cognitive assessment strategy grounded in personal construct theory. Pilot data indicate that (a) the DART can assess the complexity, flexibility and uncertainty of our frame- works for understanding death, (b) these properties relate meaningfully to demo- graphic and psychological characteristics of respondents, and (c) such cognitive structural variables are nonredundant with traditional death anxiety measures, whether unidimensional or multidimensional.

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