Death Anxiety and Death Acceptance: A Preliminary Approach

Death acceptance is not necessarily the opposite of death anxiety. The two could in fact correlate positively. A third category of “death denial” should also be considered. A new scale to measure death acceptance was devised. It was found to be reliable and, in a group of students, correlated positively ( rs = .242 and .263) with two existing death anxiety scales. People can therefore accept death and be anxious about it at the same time. Religious unbelievers were found to be death-acceptant and females death-anxious. There was no relation between death attitudes and achievement motivation.