Attitudes toward Death, Anxiety, and Social Desirability

Abstract

Thirty-four male and thirty-four female undergraduates completed four scales of attitudes toward death including the Death Concern Scale, the Templer Death Anxiety Scale, the Tolor and Reznikoff Death Anxiety Scale, and the Fear of Death and Dying Scale, as well as the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The four death scales showed moderate commonality reflecting, on average, 35 per cent common variance for both males and females. For females, a substantial portion of this commonality could be attributed to correlations between the death scales and trait anxiety whereas for males there was stronger evidence for the discriminant validity of the death scales. Three of the four death scales showed significant negative correlations with social desirability. There were no significant sex differences on the death scales.