Death Anxiety And Self Esteem Essay

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The objective of this paper is to explore the relation between death anxiety and individual’s self-esteem. “Death Anxiety” and “Self-Esteem” will be the main variables of the research. Death anxiety can be defined as the realization of inescapability of death, which leads many people to experiencing deep sense of terror (Harmon-Jones et al., 1997). Humans are unique due to their ability to learn and adapt to live with an understanding of their mortality. It is a task for the cultural systems to symbolize death and provide a meaning for its occurrence, furthermore to interpret its superiority over human life (Becker, 1973). Death anxiety is a multidimensional concept, which revolves around fear and anxiety related to the reality of dying and expecting it to happen. This fear might be based on various emotional, cognitive and motivational components that depend on the development stage and sociocultural life events (Letho, 2009). Second concept in this research - “Self-Esteem” is defined as confidence and satisfaction in oneself, self-respect” (Merriam-Webster). In this research self-esteem will be viewed from two sides: Intrinsic and Extrinsic, since individual’s self-esteem consistency depends on both – internal and external factors as it is specified in Contingencies of Self–Worth Scale. In this case, measurements were conveyed through an analysis of internal and external sources of self-esteem, which are: approval of others, physical appearance, dominating over others in competition, academic competence, family love and support, being a virtuous or moral person, and God’s love (Crocker et al., 2003). Confrontation of death and the anxiety created by its inevitability can be considered as notable dilemma for humans (Letho, 200... ... middle of paper ... ...etter job performance and increase in academic competency. Harmon-Jones assumed that increased self-esteem protects them from experiencing anxiety (Brewer, 2002). This research was based on findings from previous studies with main objective of exploring relation between death anxiety and self-esteem. Even though majority of previous studies have shown either none or negative relation between main variables of research, expectation of positive correlation is possible. Therefore the hypothesis of this research is that, individuals with stronger self-esteem would have less fear of inevitable death. It is important to convey this research in order to find out whether the relationship between self-esteem strength and fear of inevitable death exists. It could lead to successful prevention of self-damaging behaviors such as suicide in individuals with low self-esteem.

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