Effects of Death Education on Conscious and Unconscious Death Anxiety

Abstract

One-hundred sixty-two adults varying in the extent to which they participated in either didactic or experiential forms of death education versus those who had no such exposure to death and dying-related issues completed both self-report measures of overt death fear as well as twenty-five sentence completion stems assessing unconscious covert death fears. Data analysis suggested that in contrast to previous research, didactic death education was effective in altering death anxiety. However, such effects were restricted to measures of covert death fear. These findings suggest that the previously reported moderate impact of death education on death attitudes may be a consequence of too much attention to self-reported concerns, and that the effects of death education may be much greater if more emphasis is placed on unconscious covert fears about one's mortality, wherein a didactic approach may yield more success.