Death Anxiety

Question 1

What is a transdiagnostic construct?

Answer 1

It is a construct that features across many disorders (e.g., low self-esteem, perfectionism) and represents a causal mechanism that might be behind several disorder (e.g., rumination).

Question 2

What are transdiagnostic constructs important?

Answer 2

Because most people who present for psychological treatment will have many comorbid disorders. Transdiagnostic treatment targets the overlapping feature underlying each disorder, instead of treating one specific diagnosis.

Question 3

To a certain extent, death anxiety is considered normal, why?

Answer 3

Because humans are the only one’s who can contemplate our own mortality and anxiety about dying is a central part of the human condition.

Question 4

Death anxiety was recorded throughout all of written history, what was a common theme, or how was it commonly depicted?

Answer 4

Often it was someone grappling with the fear of their own death after seeing the mortality of a friend.

Question 5

In 1973, a cultural anthropologist published a book that posited one of the first theories on death anxiety (‘the denial of death’). What was his theory?

Answer 5

That humans have an innate motivation to live BUT we also know that death is inevitable. This can produce a crippling fear.

Question 6

Terror Management Theory was developed by social psychologists, what is it?

Answer 6

It follows on from the idea that humans have death anxiety because of the ‘motivation to live’ + ‘inevitability of death’. In order to grapple with that conflict, humans have two main buffers that act to counter the biological reality:

1. Cultural worldview: embracing cultural beliefs that give people more durable forms of meaning and value than the inevitability of death.
2. Self-esteem: gain meaning by fulfilling expectations of a cultural worldview.

Question 7

There have been many studies on Terror Management Theory that make ‘Mortality Salient’ to the participant and show the impact of death on their behaviour. If someone displays ‘abnormal’ behaviour, according to the theory, what is happening?

Answer 7

The buffers aren’t working properly, and people aren’t embracing the cultural beliefs that give them meaning or they don’t have self-esteem and are reduced to fear their mortality, or their insignificance.

Question 8

It has been recently suggested that death anxiety might be at the root of many mental disorders, and a significant transdiagnostic construct. If so, what does this show that the field of psychology is getting wrong?

Answer 8

That the disorders are not discreet independent events, but there is an underlying disorder (the fear of death). This would explain the ‘revolving door’ of mental health (people coming and going getting different diagnoses).

Question 9

What role does death anxiety play in Panic Disorder?

Answer 9

Death anxiety is argued to play a central role in panic disorder.
People with this disorder report significantly higher death fears than others.
Those with comorbid disorders reported higher levels of death anxiety than individuals who only met criteria for one disorder.

Question 10

What role does death anxiety play in Somatic Symptom Disorder, Illness Anxiety, Hypochondriasis (

Answer 10

Death anxiety is argued to be the central feature, as these people worry that they are about to die, even if there is no evidence.

Question 11

What role does death anxiety play in Agoraphobia & Separation Anxiety Disorder?

Answer 11

Many symptoms of these disorders are associated with fears of death. For example, catastrophic thinking, worries about a terrible event.

Question 12

What correlation was found in Separation Anxiety Disorder and death anxiety?

Answer 12

As the fear of death increased, the fear of separation from a loved on also increased.

Question 13

Why is death anxiety seen as a core factor of Agoraphobia?

Answer 13

Because Agoraphobia often develops after a traumatic event, such as loosing a loved one. And being faced with this mortality stops the person from wanting to leave their home.

Question 14

It has been suggested that separation anxiety may (what?) death anxiety.

Answer 14

It has been suggested that separation anxiety may mask death anxiety.

Question 15

Compared to controls, what was increased among individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia?

Answer 15

Both death anxiety and separation anxiety.

Question 16

What did Freud suggest about Specific Phobias in relation to the fear of death?

Answer 16

That the fear of death underlies all phobias.
This is probably true, as the things that people are often scared of are things that can potentially kill them - BUT they are also smaller things that can be managed by the person, or avoided by them. It’s like managing one’s own fear of death.

Question 17

What is death anxiety’s role in PTSD?

Answer 17

As PTSD develops after being exposed to death, threatened death, actual or serious injury, it is believed that death anxiety plays a massive role in the development and maintenance of PTSD.

Question 18

From a Terror Management Theory perspective, why is death anxiety so related to PTSD?

Answer 18

Because after experiencing a ‘death event’, the person’s anxiety buffers may be disrupted. The severity of symptoms is dependent on both the severity of trauma and the prior strength of buffers.

Question 19

What is the underlying fear of PTSD?

Answer 19

The underlying fear of PTSD is death.

Question 20

A study exposed two groups to ‘mortality salience’ content and observed their subsequent death-related thoughts. The two groups contained people with: high PTSD symptoms and low PTSD symptoms. What were the results?
What does this indicate?

Answer 20

After MS exposure:

• High PTSD had an immediate increase in death-related thoughts.
• Low PTSD suppressed death thoughts.

It indicates that PTSD is caused by the inability to suppress death thoughts.

Question 21

What is the role of death anxiety in Depressive Disorders?

Answer 21

Depressive Disorders may be exacerbated by existential despair and lack of meaning (fear of death).

Question 22

Looking at death anxiety in people with Depressive Disorders, what might help with the treatment of the disorder (according to the terror management theory)?

Answer 22

Bolstering worldview beliefs may increase the feeling that life is meaningful among depressed individuals.

Question 23

What did death anxiety correlate with in a study of individual’s with eating disorders?

Answer 23

It correlated with the eating disorder, perfectionism and low self esteem.

Question 24

In a study that first reminded participants (both men and women) about death, what behaviour occurred afterwards when they were offered food?

Answer 24

After being reminded of death, the women ate much less than the men. This is because, a common worldview for women (that might make them feel meaningful or valid) is thinness, so in order to buffer from the fear of death, they must restrict their eating.

Question 25

What were the results of a study looking at social anxiety?

Answer 25

Students were primed with ‘death content’, and it was found that students who were high in social anxiety subsequently displayed a lot more social avoidance.

Question 26

What are the clear indicators that death anxiety underlies OCD symptoms?

Answer 26

The obsessions and compulsions in OCD often involve death fear, such as:

• fears of contamination.
• checking due to a fear of an untoward event.
• aggressive obsessions, or fearing that violent thoughts can produce harm.
• tapping & counting, or the fear that if I don’t do this something bad will happen.

Question 27

In the experiment on death anxiety within sufferers of OCD, what were the results?

Answer 27

People who have clinical OCD were separated into two groups: washers & non-washers. It was found that after being exposed to death content, the ‘washer’ group washed their hands for twice as long when compared with the ‘washer’ group who were not primed. And they washed for much longer than the ‘non-washer’ group.
This suggests that thoughts of death can worsen OCD symptoms, as they are the go-to method for coping with death anxiety.

Question 28

In the correlational study looking at ‘death anxiety’ as a transdiagnostic construct compared with ‘perfectionism’, ‘rumination’ & ‘self-esteem’, what was found?

Answer 28

That non of the other transdiagnostic constructs rival ‘death anxiety’ in terms of how many disorders it underlies and causes.

Question 29

In the study on death anxiety and Panic disorder, Illness Anxiety and Somatic Symptom Disorder, it was hypothesised that if death anxiety underlies the disorders, reminders of death should increase behaviours related to the illnesses. What was found?

Answer 29

That after having a reminder of death, participants increased their time spent body scanning, increased their perception of bodily threat (matched a photo of a tooth related to illness with their own tooth) and reported a higher intention to seek medical help.
In other words, thoughts of death can drive the symptoms of these disorders.

Question 30

Death anxiety is understood to underlie basically every disorder. What needs to change in the current treatment protocols?

Answer 30

Instead of treating the symptoms that relate to the disorder, we need to treat the underlying fear of death. All these treatments have great pre- and post- measures, but they do not address the underlying core problem.
The fact is that one day we will die, and reducing someone’s symptoms does not help them to overcome that fear.

Question 31

Although we know very little about how to treat death anxiety, which treatment(s) seems to produce good results?

Answer 31

CBT and the constant exposure to death. Get people to write their own tombstone, get them to identify their own values and beliefs.

Question 32

We know that avoidance increases anxiety, what needs to be done about death anxiety then?

Answer 32

Forcing a constant confrontation with death will reduce avoidance but also help give you perspective in what matters in each moment.