Attachment styles and fear of personal death: A case study of affect regulation.

Abstract

The relation between attachment styles and fear of personal death was assessed. We classified a sample of Israeli undergraduate students into secure, ambivalent, and avoidant attachment groups and assessed the extent of, and the meaning attached to, overt fear of personal death as well as the extent of fear at a low level of awareness. Ambivalent subjects exhibited stronger overt fear of death than did secure and avoidant subjects, and both ambivalent and avoidant subjects showed stronger fear of death at a low level of awareness than secure subjects. Ambivalent subjects were also more likely to fear the loss of their social identity in death, and avoidant subjects were more likely to fear the unknown nature of their death. Results are discussed in terms of the effects of attachment styles on affect regulation. According to Bowiby's (1973) attachment theory, when an individual is confident that an attachment figure will be available to him whenever he desires it, that person will be much less prone to either intense or chronic fear than will an individual who for any reason has no such confidence (p. 202). Whereas most attachment research has focused on the fear of separation from a loved person, no attention has been paid to the fear of the ultimate separation: personal death. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between attachment styles and fear of personal death.