Exam 1 Flashcards
Sociology
The science that deals with the various social groups which we encounter in our world today, the internal organization and operation of those social groups, the ways to change and maintain these organizations, and the relationship between these social groups.
Funeral service sociology
Address ourselves specifically to the funeral and disposition of human remains of the various groups that a funeral director will serve.
Begins with arrangements, ends with disposition.
Cultural Universals include:
Government
Marriage
Funeral rites
Funeral rites within a culture
Traditional funeral rites
Humanistic funeral rites
Adaptive funeral rites
Immediate disposition
Primitive funeral rites
Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of importance
- Physiological needs
- Safety needs
- Social needs
- Esteem needs
- Self fulfillment
Physiological needs
Oxygen Food Shelter Water Sleep Elimination Clothing
Safety needs
Security Stability Order Physical safety Shelter for body warmth and protection Sensory or motor stimulation Stability and consistency in one's life
Social needs/love
Affection
Identification
Companionship
Love and belonging
Emotional needs
Love
Approval and self esteem
Importance
Recognition and respect
Esteem needs
Self esteem Self recognition Prestige Success Esteem of others Recognition Self sufficiency Needs to be wanted Need to be needed Productivity
Social needs
Identification Belonging Education or learning Religion or spiritual Recreation or play
Self actualization
Self fulfillment Achieving one's capabilities Beauty Harmony Spiritual
Responsibilities of the family
Discipline- includes attitude towards death and dying.
Giving and receiving motivation
Establishment and fulfillment of mental expectations.
Modernization is credited to what three processes?
- Urbanization
- Industrialization
- Bureaucratization
What determines a family’s funeral customs?
Mores, folkways and customs
Enculturation
Socialization, the process by which each individual learns about the accepted social values and activities important to his/her culture
Dictates what people can and cannot do in regards to death and the funeral rite
These dictates become custom
Kantor and Lehr 3 basic family types
- Open family structures
- Closed family structures
- Random family structures
Open family structures
Democratic Allow honest exchange Sense of order Flexibility Adaptation through consensus Individual rights are respected Loyalty of self and family is expected
In grief: tolerant
Closed family structures
Rules and heirarchal power structure
Subordinate their needs to the good of the group
Rigid daily schedules
Seek stability through tradition
In grief: rigidity and loyalty may disallow feelings and block communication.
Random family structures
More likely to do their own thing
Few rules if any
Fosters exploration through intuition
In grief: inhibit the sharing of the reality of the death and the experience of loss.
Healthy families
Have a shares religious core
Abound in rituals and traditions
Terminal Illness
Depleting emotionally
Financial issues
Life support issues
Organ donation
Sudden death
Accidental or violent Family must deal with: Shock Disbelief Abrupt changes in lifestyle No time to prepare Unfinished business No time to say goodbye
Violent death
Trauma possible from body disfiguration
Homicide
Time consuming court cases
Believe justice has not been served
Major disaster
Insecurity
Feelings of vulnerability
Deaths not grieved openly
Suicide
Homicide
Alcohol related deaths
AIDS
Minimized deaths
Miscarriage
Stillbirth
Infant death
Crisis
An unstable state of affairs in which a decisive change is impeding
Religion in America
Judeo-Christian
Overall purpose is to allow for the acknowledgement of the doctrine of atonement.
Other purpose is to permit the bereaved family to call into use their faith and belief concerning life and death
Government in America
Democratic
Families are free to select the funeral rite of their choice
Economics in America
American is a nation of free enterprise
Funeral home not funded directly by the government, free to open own funeral home.
Age in America
Youth oriented society
Death denying
Place the old in nursing homes
Educational Level in America
High degree of educational status with excellent public education systems
Many funeral directors are required by state to take continuing education program classes
Mobility in America
Very mobile society with much evidence of neo-localism, relocation is acceptable.
Use of the funeral home
Normal site for visitation, rosaries, fraternal services, embalming.
Sometimes arrangements.
Sometimes funeral service.
Use of embalming
Became more greatly accepted after WWII.
Purpose is primarily disinfection, secondarily preservation, third restoration.
Enables a family to wait longer to assemble relatives for the funeral rite, which enables a more complete acceptance of death.
Viewing the remains
Differs in different parts of the Country.
gathering at the funeral home to physically view the remains
Visitation at the funeral home
Either via set hours or a state room depending on area.
May provide the only time for friends and family of the deceased to visit informally with the immediate family of the deceased during the funeral period.
The funeral director
Must expand knowledge on type of family they are serving, customs, traditions and religion of the family, and the rules and regulations that the family operates under.
Credit
Allows a family to select a more desirable service at the time of death or before death.
Disposition of the remains
Interment is predominant, entombment, and cremation
Pre need programs
Planning and purchase of merchandise before death occurs
Itemization
A method of pricing that provides a separate charge for each item of service and merchandise.
Factors that have contributed to the avoidance or denial of death
Secularization of American society
Deritualization of grief
Growth of impersonal technology around dying people
Unrealistic attention and focus on death
Three primary styles of denial
- Ignore death
- Efforts to lessen the harshness of death- choice words, beautification
- A distorted preoccupation with death that, to some degree, mimics pornography in its danger of dehumanizing genuine feelings and emotions.
3 primary categories of fear associated with death process
- The process of dying is painful
- The process of dying is undignified
- The process of dying as a burden to others
3 primary categories of fear associated with death (in general)
- Fear of the process of dying
- Fear of the loss of life
- Fear of what happens after death
Fear of the loss of life
Vulnerability
Incompleteness or failure
Separation of people, places, and things that are loved and treasured.
Fear of what happens after death
The fate of the body
Fear of judgement
Fear of what happens after death
The death anxiety scale
Measures: General death anxiety Thoughts and talk of death Subjective proximity of death Fear of pain and suffering Fear of the unknown
The threat index
Interview format, used in 23% of studies, offers more interpretability than the DAS.
The collett- Lester fear of death scale
36 items connected to 4 dimensions of death anxiety:
- Death of self
- Dying of self
- Death of others
- Dying of others
18% of studies
The Hoelter multidimensional fear of death scale
4% of studies, features 8 individual subscales, each containing 6 items on which respondents indicate extent of their agreement.
6 goals for death care professionals
- Tactfully avoid euphemisms in speaking and writing (remove taboo).
- Promote and demonstrate comfortable and intelligent interaction
- Encourage death education for children
- Perceive health care workers and other caregivers as professionals and human beings.
- Stay educated on changes and trends.
- Encourage, communicate, participate in meaningful research in the field of death studies, grief, and bereavement.
4 points to be drawn from funeral rites
- The funeral rite itself can be called a social function.
- The funeral rite is a cultural universal.
- To understand how a society buries it’s dead, the funeral director must first examine and understand the social structure of the society.
- Funeral rites reflect both modern and contemporary tendencies.
Psychology
The study of human behavior, focuses on the individual behavioral patterns of living things.
Begins at time of death and ends with the acceptance of death.
