Assessing Individual Differences in Death Threat: A Brief Theoretical and Psychometric Review of the Threat Index

Abstract

According to G. A. Kelly's (1955) Personal Construct Theory, people construe the elements of reality along bipolar meaning dimensions (e.g., sad–happy) to make reality more predictable. People are threatened by personal death when their conception of death along these dimensions is inconsistent with their conception of their self. S. R. Krieger, F. R. Epting, and L. M. Leitner (1974) developed the “Threat Index” (TI) to assess “death threat.” To complete the TI, a person indicates on several bipolar meaning dimensions on which pole he or she construes “yourself.” The person indicates on a separate form their views about personal death, “as if it were to occur at this time in your life,” on the same dimensions. The TI is scored by summing the number of “splits” in which “self” and “death” are placed at opposite ends of a dimension. Death threat is greater with more splits, because the number of these splits indicates the extent to which the construct system must be reorganized to construe death as a personal eventuality. I review evidence that the TI is a reliable and valid measure of death orientation and is uniquely suited to assess Kellian death threat. To showcase the heuristic value of Kelly's theory and the utility of the TI as an assessment of death threat, I review research testing and supporting the hypothesis that people who score high (relative to those who score low) in death threat display a denial orientation toward death-relevant stimuli.