Death concern and businessmen's mid-life crisis.

Abstract

The Death Concern Scale of Dickstein was completed by 227 businessmen between the ages of 35 and 60 yr. They were provided a definition of a mid-life crisis and asked to indicate if they had experienced such a crisis and its level of severity. Analysis indicated that 157 respondents acknowledged having a mid-life crisis and that death concern was significantly related to the reported experience of a crisis. Those who reported having mid-life crises had the highest scores on death concern. There was a significant association of more severe crises and higher scores on death concern. Lastly, older respondents reported having greater crises than younger ones. These results are interpreted as providing support for the proposition that mid-life crises exist for men and that death concern is related to such crises.