PSYC 208 Unit 2 PDF

5. The Social Context of Death and Dying Euphemisms - a common word or phase intended to soften the harshness of a literal meaning Talking about death - To someone who is grieving - Say you’re sorry for their loss; express that you’re there for them; ask what you can...

5. The Social Context of Death and Dying Euphemisms - a common word or phase intended to soften the harshness of a literal meaning Talking about death - To someone who is grieving - Say you’re sorry for their loss; express that you’re there for them; ask what you can do for them; ask if there’s anyone you can get in touch on their behalf; ask if they want to walk about the deceased - To someone who is dying - Follow the peron’s lead; express that you know the end is nearing; expressive forgiveness, and ask to be forgiven; express gratitude; say goodbye Social context of death Family - Can be a significant source of support in death and loss - Death and loss can also impair relationships - Death of a family member can be significantly disruptive and upsetting to the family system - A void is created in the family structure that requires a new homeostasis Other factors in family adjustment - Increased closeness and overprotective behaviour due to fears of more loss - Lack of involvement due to fears of more loss - Avoiding talking about it - Idealized image of deceased person - Negative effects on bereaved siblings - Replacement of person - Anniversary of death, other birthdays and holidays Detachment - More intense grief was associated with greater detachment from family - Emotional (expressive) support displayed direct effects on grief and detachment - Listen, pay attention, ask questions, don’t judge, show love and concern Divorce - Often assumed that bereaved parents specifically are at an increased risk of divorce - The majority of marital relationships survive this challenge and may even be strengthened in the long run - However, bereaved parents had higher divorce rates than other parents Family conflict - Disagreements among family often complicate or worsen the grieving process Pre-existing family dysfunction - Poorer psychological well-being - Poorer social functioning - Lower functional capacity at work - A more complicated grieving process Transgenerational grief - Passing on the unresolved negative emotions of loss to younger generations - Via family secrets, avoidance of discussing the loss, or unresolved grief from earlier losses resurfacing later in life - A family pattern develops which is subject to transgenerational passage if family members are unable to mourn Children - Often excluded from discussions about death, visits to see a dying person, funeral/memorial services - May lead to avoidant, anger and fear responses to loss - Involving children can lead to more positive perspectives and coping Community - Averill argues that “grief is a biological reaction, the evolutionary function of which is to insure group survival” - Grief may be one of the most powerful forces for social cohesions - Responsibilities of communities - Support and facilitate mourning rituals/funerals/memorials - Help the bereaved remember the deceased - Assist the bereaved in the grieving process Social Support - One of the strongest predictors of bereavement outcomes - However, the general public is not universally prepared, capable, or willing to provide such support Religions and culture - Plays significant roles in the response of family and community to death and loss Legalities and formalities Legal options in death - Living wills/advance directives - legal document that allows competent individuals to indicate their preferences for care before car is needed  - Power of attorney (medical, health care) - allows a named person to make decisions about one’s health care, housing and other aspects of incapable of making such decisions - POA (power of attorney) ceases at death - Do Not Resuscitate Order, Medical Assistance in Dying Denial - Tendency for dying people to simultaneously hold two opposite views - Denying death and minimizing the bleakness of one’s prognosis - Simultaneously making plans for one’s death by completing a will, arranging burial plots, etc Underlying the legalities - psychological functions/effects various legal options in dying - Enhanced perceived control - Autonomy / informed consent - Stability for meme Legally responsible - After death, only the executor of a will can make decisions after death The funeral industry - A funeral service is held to memorialize person with their body present - Funerals can be either “open casket” (allowing people to view the body) or closed - A memorial service is held to memorialize a deceased person without their body present, may include food, drinks, etc. Rites of passage - A public ceremony or event marking an important stage or transition in a person’s life - Necessary after the death of a loved one Roles of funerals - Acknowledge the death of a community member - Irreversibility of death is emphasized - Acknowledge the grief of the bereaved - Provide guidelines for the public display of emotion and how community members can support the bereaved - Provide guidelines for disposal of the body - Provide a starting point for recovery and renewal Effects and benefits of funerals - Most people tend to believe that funeral rituals help their process of adjustment - Clinicians assume them to be helpful - Question: But do funerals actually help with the grieving process? - Positive effects  - Studies found no correlations between level of participation in a funeral attendance and grief adjustment - Some evidence of only short-term benefits (Hayslip et al.) - Evaluating a funeral as comforting was related to fewer difficulties in grief (Gamino et al.) - Negative effects - Funeral symptoms may encourage disenfranchised grief by failing to acknowledge certain relationships (Doka) - Used to create distance from overwhelming emotion, resulting delayed expressions of grief (Bosley & Cook) - Conclusion: may or may not facilitate the grieving process (Langman;Walter) - Depends on the ability of the bereaved to shape those rituals and say goodbye in a way which is consistent with their values - Underscores the importance of allowing people to grieve and mourn in a way that is most appropriate for them Difficulties with the funeral system - Making decisions about the funeral - Casket, headstones, etc. - The financial burden - Prices of caskets - Shame on choosing cheaper caskets - Interpersonal challenges (e.g., seeing unwelcomed people, seeing family and friends, interpersonal conflict) - Misinformation about the industry creating family unease (e.g., exaggeration of unethical practices) - Gamino et al. found that adverse events during funerals were related to more intense grief reactions Symbolic immortality - Funeral service, burial or cremation of the body, and the way a person is memorialized all play a role in symbolic immortality - Making decisions in advance can enhance one’s sense of symbolic immortality Celebrations of life - Memorial events that are concerned with telling the story of the deceased; greater flexibility, fewer formalities Green burials - Forcing the funeral industry to rethink death - Capsula Mundi - The biodegradable burial pod that turns your body into a tree - Burial pods, bio urns, eternal reefs  - How do green burial options affect symbolic immortality differently than traditional options? - Aquamation/resomation - Alkaline hydrolysis - alkaline solution made with potassium reduces the body to a skeleton, skeleton is then crushed into a powder, as in cremation - Body preservation (cryonics) - Memorial fireworks - Plastination (body worlds) Mass Media - Death and dying in TV, film, the news, and online media Death in the news - Death in the news evokes a strong emotion in response - Images of tragedy and death in the news - Exposure to upsetting images may lead to either compassion or compassion fatigue and apathy Social media - May complicate the grieving process by posting images or videos of fatalities to social media Media coverage of suicides - Suicide contagion (copycats) can result in suicide clusters - Aggravating factors: - Detailed and sensationalized (intended to grab and hold your attention; sound more dramatic) media coverage - Lack of information about mental health services Suicide contagion - Stack examined the impact of publicized suicides in the news - Celebrity suicides were 14 times more likely to find a contagion effect - Real suicides were 4 times more likely to find a contagion effect - Ex. Robin Williams - 10% increase in suicides in the U.S. following his death (Fink et al.) - Analysis of 63 news articles published following his death - 46% went into detail about the method by which he died - 27% tended to romanticize the suicide (struggle, comedian life) - 11% included information about help-seeking Recommendations for reporting suicides - Inform the audience without sensationalizing suicide - Use school/work or family photo, not photo of scene of death - Include hotline logo/local crisis phone number - Do not describe the suicide as inexplicable  - Report on suicide as a public health issue 6. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Dying, Death, & Grief Culture and religion - Culture: distinctive customs, values, beliefs, knowledge, et.c that are passed on from generation to generation; basis for everyday behaviours - Religion: organized system of beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols designed to facilitate closeness to the sacred or transcendent, and to foster an understanding of one’s relation and responsibility to others Sociocultural constructions of death - Society and culture define death and dictate our response to it - “Culture is never more evident than at the end of life” (Boateng et al.) - Some cultures and religions envision a circular pattern of life and death in which a person dies and is reborn multiple times (Hinduism) - Others view it as occurring only once with the spirit living on (Christianity) - Dead and the living co-exist and the dead can influence the living Perspectives on death - Eastern religions - - Abrahamic religions - - Indigenous beliefs - Concept of “completing the circle” Beliefs about Life after Death Belief in an afterlife - Majority of the world’s population believes in some form of life after death - Belief in God declined in Western countries, but belief in an afterlife has remained steady or increased Belief in reincarnation - Common in Eastern religions but less common in the West - Growing number of Westerners believe in reincarnation without any particular connection to Eastern religions Belief in life after death - religion/culture are key factors in beliefs about life after death - Religious affiliation and church attendance are predictors of belief in Heaven and/or afterlife  - NDEs and post-death sensory experiences are associated with belief in afterlife and reincarnation - Are afterlife beliefs intuitive? - Study asked to imagine “what it is like to die and be dead” (Pereira et al.) - Found a tendency to imagine the state of death as a continuation of oneself (dead-I) - 50% said they imagine their own death as something they “observe” - 35% said it was impossible to imagine death as the absence of themselves - Suggests that it’s difficult to imagine a state of death without consciousness - Also asked to evaluate the degree to which various experiences (perceptual, emotional, etc.) were dependent on the body - Perceptual, emotional, epistemic (cognitive/knowledge), and desire were all associated with the dead-I - Perceived as more likely to continue after death Dissecting Afterlife Beliefs - Bering examined how American uni students conceived of dead person’s mentality immediately after death - Psychobiological and perceptual states ceased - Emotion, desire and knowledge continued A dualistic pattern - Dualistic pattern of thinking is common across culture - Biological processes cease in pervasive fashion at death than do psychological processes - Natural and supernatural explanations for death often coexist - When primed with reminders of God, belief in the continuation of both bio. and psyc. processes after death increased in both groups - Mixed explanations (natural and supernatural) were also common Intuitive dualism - Refers to our natural assumption about different outcomes for the physical body and the mind - Bering suggests this is because we frequently observe the cessation of biological processes, but find it hard to imagine the cessation of mental processes Consequences of afterlife beliefs - Consequences of afterlife beliefs for the awareness, denial, or fear of death - Belief in an afterlife (and belief in Hell) appear to have implications for death anxiety - Bleak or uncertain afterlife views were associated with poorer adjustment following the loss of a spouse - Belief in Hell was associated with lower rates of crime  - Belief in reincarnation was found to help people make sense of suffering and injustice in a British study - Belief in reincarnation was associated with significantly less helplessness, guilt, and anger post-loss in a study of bereaved parents - Belief in reincarnation can also lead to anxiety depending on the content of one’s beliefs Cultural factors in death anxiety - the role of culture and religion in death anxiety Death anxiety across cultures - Evidence of death anxiety in nearly all cultures, regardless of religion or specific beliefs Death-affirming vs death-denying cultures - Death-affirming: cultures handle the idea of death fairly well and are more accepting of death - Death-denying: great aversion to the idea of dying, generally more fear of dying - Most Western cultures tend to be death-denying - Evidence to suggest that dearth anxiety tends to be higher in death-denying societies Religion and death anxiety - Religious belief may cause death anxiety: a pos. Correlation (Ellis et al.) - Death anxiety motivates religious belief: a pos. correlation (Jong et al.) - Religious belief mitigates death anxiety: a neg. correlation (Jong et al.) - Higher belief in religion and after life is associated with lower death anxiety (Roshdieh et al.) - Positive correlations between religious beliefs and death anxiety (U.S., Malaysia, Turkey) (Ellis et al.) - Fear of death, ranked highest to lowest - Muslim - Chritian/catholic/protestant - Buddhist/hindu - Non-religious - Intrinsic religiosity (driven by internal needs and motives) is negatively correlated with death anxiety - Extrinsic religiosity (driven by external pressures or reinforcements) is positively correlated with death anxiety - TMT - inverted U-curve that represents both positive and negative correlations - Religiosity high = low death anxiety - confidence in religion - Religiosity in the middle = high death anxiety - Religiosity low = low death anxiety - Death anxiety motivates religious belief: positive correlation - Religious belief mitigates death anxiety: negative correlation - Secure attachment to God was associated with decreasing death anxiety (Jung) - Supports the idea that greater religious commitment is associated with lower death anxiety Afterlife beliefs and death anxiety - Reward expectation of afterlife that is associated with lower death anxiety - When one expects to encounter punishment, they will display higher death anxiety than those who do not believe in an afterlife - Degree of involvement in religion may interact with belief in afterlife to influence death anxiety Death Apprehension Theory - Proposes that belief in afterlife contributes to one’s fear of death due to uncertainty of the outcome - Belief in a demanding and vindictive God - Certainty about the reality of an afterlife - If these are high, fear of death will be high - Obedience to religious teachings - Certainty of divine forgiveness - If these are also high, fear of death may be mitigated Belief in Hell - Hell anxiety is associated with death anxiety, largely driven by the fear of punishment - Suggests it is more likely a rational response to personal religious beliefs Role in mental health - Examined the role of afterlife beliefs in anxiety, depression, obsession-compulsion, paranoid ideation, and social anxiety (Flannelly et al.) - Pleasant beliefs were associated with reduced symptomatology - Unpleasant beliefs were associated with increased symptomatology Grief and Mourning across Cultures Death and grief as universals - “Certain things must be done” - Death is universally associated with emotionality, usual expression among the bereaved is crying - Crying, fear, and anger are so common in grief that they are deemed universal expressions Grief across cultures - Most cultures provide opportunities for the expression of grief in rites of mourning Cultural orientation - Individualistic cultures - focus on uniqueness, independence, agency; value identity and self-enhancement  - Collectivist cultures - focus on relationships and communion; value community and selflessness Cultural orientation and grief - Greater emotional expressivity in individualistic cultures - Compared to Americans, bereaved Chinese participants displayed (Bonanno et al.) - A more acute pattern of grieving in the early months of bereavement - A more rapid recovery - And greater levels of grief processing early on Cultural orientation and mourning - Collectivistic cultures are more likely to see funerals as opportunities for social bonding and “grand celebration” - Individualistic cultures tend to see funerals as opportunities for mourning; often more private and solemn Collective Trauma and Grief Historical trauma in Indigenous peoples - European colonization involved a series of high traumatic stressors - Genocide, new disease, loss of land, criminalization, loss of culture, forced assimilation - Transgenerational trauma - trauma passed down through generations - Transgenerational grief - grief passed down through generations - Resulted in a long legacy of chronic trauma and unresolved grief across generations Traumatic grief in Indigenous peoples - Increased risk for complicated/traumatic grief because of - Rates of all-cause mortality and death by suicide - History of multiple stressors resulting from the effects of colonization and forced assimilation - Loss of language and culture Residential school system - Contributing factor to the traumatic grief of Indigenous peoples Disruption of burial sites - Indigenous and Aboriginal burial grounds around the world were subjected to archaeological digs and excavations - Such disruptions interfere with funeral rituals and important afterlife beliefs of Indigenous cultures Indigenous Repatriation  - Many governments support the unconditional return of Indigenous/Aboriginal ancestral remains Cycle of loss and grief - Cycle of continuous grieving alone may be a high risk group for complicated grief Traumatic grief in African-Americans - African-American college students display more traumatic grief compared to their White peers - Also displays greater grief for the loss of extended kin beyond immediate family Traumatic grief in Gaza and Israel - Mental health of young people in Gaza is of great concern - More traumatic grief has been observed in Israel since the Hamas attack Traumatic grief in refugees - Many refugees experience trauma and prolonged symptoms of grief, and this compromises their ability to adapt following relocation Traumatic grief after mass shootings - Survivors can experience life-threatening trauma, guilt Survivor’s guilt - Feelings of guilt experienced by those who have survived a traumatic event - Now recognized symptom of PTSD - More likely for individuals who have experienced childhood traumas and those with anxiety and depression - Ex. military officers, holocaust survivors, AIDS survivors Collective grief - Socially shared grief, seen after tragedies and natural disasters - Harju (2015) suggests that social media can play a positive role during collective experiences of grief by widening communities to include support from weak ties - Also seen to occur during threats of infectious disease Ecological grief - Grief is a natural and legitimate response to the collective experience of ecological loss (Cunsolo & Eliis) Climate change and TMT - “Eco-anxiety” has been suggested to involve a number of existential anxieties, including fear of death - Climate change is likely to lead to heightened mortality salience; mortality defenses may either limit or advance climate action 7. Sociocultural Issues in Death and Loss Culture as a source of meaning - Help people make sense of death and dying - TMT suggests cultures offer worldviews that help cope with the fear of death - Worldviews involve the idea that humans are beings with would and/or lasting identities - Valuable contributors to the worldview leads to the sense of existence beyond physical death - Offers 2 routes to feeling transcendent of death - Cultures allow us to feel literally immortal by providing conceptions of a soul that continues beyond death - Cultures offer symbolic immortality by providing avenues for our identity and contributions to be preserved after our physical death - Provides opportunities for the expression of grief in meaningful ways - Burials and mourning rituals offer people ways to process and express grief Culture as a constraint - Can also limit experiences of dying and grieving - Culture dictates notions of “good” or “right” ways of dying Restrictions on grieving - Social institutions place “explicit constraints on individual’s bereavement behaviours” - And the attitudes underlying these institutional requirements may place implicit constraints on behaviour Death and grief in Western society Critical considerations - Darcy Hariss (2010): clients’ concerns revolve around what they “should” do and what is “normal” - Our expectations in death and dying vs. actual reality - Western society is basically described as a death-denying and product-driven society whose foundations rest upon capitalism and patriarchal hierarchies (productivity, competition, and consumerism) - Capitalism - productivity, competition and consumerism - Affects the grieving process as people are not as focused on bereavement, rather the funeral process - Patriarchal hierarchies - stoicism and denial of emotionality - Suppressing emotions Social rules of grieving - Norms that attempt to determine who, when, where, how, how long, and for whom people should drive (Doka)  - Losing a friend versus a family member; a miscarriage - Bereavement leave of only 3 days for close family - Intense emotions, “too much” crying - Public displays of grief; grieving at social events - Gender differences in acceptable responses - Grief and mourning are considered matters of privacy in Western societies (Pennington) - Consequences: - Less direct experience with these topics - May be more inclined to avoid talking about death and grief - Reasons why a person might feel the need to grieve according to social norms - Validation, accepted socially, avoid assumption that they’re not grieving - To prevent the loss of further social support; to prevent social pain or exclusion - Grieving and mourning in online spaces are still being negotiated - Tend to search for opportunities to avoid the content without openly violating the norms Disenfranchised grief - Grief that does not follow social norms; is not expressed publicly - Disenfranchisement means to take away a person’s rights or feeling of having rights; removing their sense of equality - Possible outcomes: emotional suppression; avoidance of mourning; marginalization of the bereaved - Types - Relationship not recognized - LGBTQIA+, extramarital, friend or co-worker, ex-lover or friend - Loss not acknowledged - Miscarriage, abortion, adoption, pet - Griever excluded - Young children, elderly, people with developmental or intellectual disabilities - Circumstances of death - Suicides, executions, AIDS - Styles of grieving - Failing to show emotion, too much emotion - Self-disenfranchisement - Individuals can contribute to their own disenfranchisement - Occurs when they refuse/unable to acknowledge their own grief as being valid due to real or imagined input from others - Can lead to shame, guilt, or compromised social support - Perinatal grief - Grief experienced due to death of an infant - Miscarriage, early loss, stillbirth or neonatal loss  - Sources of ambiguity and disenfranchised grief: viability of pregnancy, physical process of pregnancy loss, making arrangements funeral arrangements, sharing the news - Stifled grief - Experience of grief that is denied its full course - Grief can be promoted by allowing time off for funerals and expecting bereaved employees to resume full-blown responsibilities immediately afterwards Grief in collectivist countries - Collectivistic cultures provide better community support and improved opportunities for social bonding during a loss - Tend to be higher in conformity - higher expectations and pressure to conform to societal norms Shameful death - the nature and consequences of shame in loss Shameful death - Ideals regarding death are rarely met; deaths are often viewed as shameful - Shame is similar to guilt, less about empathy and more about self standards and expectations - Painful, social emotion that can result from comparison of oneself with one’s own standards or the ideals of one’s social context - Compromised honour of family or community - Letting down or embarrassing their community - Behavioural, sexual, or social improprieties - Failure to observe social standards or norms - Shameful fatal illnesses - Certain diseases are more shameful than others - Ex. Death caused by HIVs Drug overdose - Deaths due to drug overdose are associated with a higher likelihood to experience shame - Sources of shame in drug overdoses - A sense of responsibility for the person’s death - Drugs are associated with criminal, therefore unacceptable behaviour - Comparing the experience of a loved one’s death with people who have lost someone to cancer, accidents, or heart disease - Not feeling the right to drive or receive sympathy from others - Parents of children lost to drug overdose - Sensing that others see the death as the child’s fault or that the child deserved it - Wondering if others will see them as a bad or neglectful parent for having a child who suffered from addiction Shame of remaining alive - Living while others have died (tragic event) - Not saving someone who died in an accident or event - Acting in ways that enabled their own survival while others did not (in accidents) Cases where an illness is seen as shameful, the person providing care may also experience shame. In contrast, not caring for a dying person is seen as shameful in other cultures. Shame of improper mourning - A bereaved person who does not follow mourning rituals in a culture, they can experience shame 8. Death in popular culture Psychology of Halloweeen - Social ritual - Facing and embracing of death and ghosts is meaningful to human beings - People engage in behaviour that they otherwise wouldn’t when they lose their sense of personal identity - Deindividuation - “Embracing one’s inner demons” - The shadow archetype - The part of our personality relegated to the darkness of the unconscious Dreaming about death - Life transitions to trauma and anxiety (explanations) End-of-life dreams - People close to death commonly dream of deceased loved ones - Comforting dreams and visions of the deceased become more prevalent Immortality stories - Immortality story I: The Elixir Story - Immortality story II: The Resurrection Story - Immortality story III: The Story of the Soul - Stories of afterlife, heaven or hell - Immortality story IV: The Legacy Story - The idea that people will be remembered and live on Psychology of zombies - Zombies are important as a reflection of ourselves, the ethical choices survivors must make - Zombie movies offer a profound commentary on the topics of death, dying, meaning, existence, resilience Death in pop culture - Death in TV, film, and advertising; the psychology of horror Death in TV & film - To create atmosphere of tension - Fascination - Death is avoided, stigmatized and rarely discussed - But people seem to have a fascination with death and dying in the media and in popular culture The psychology of horror - Personality factors that contribute to more interest in horror - Higher sensation-seeking - Higher imagination, openness to experience/emotions - Lower empathy and emotional sensitivity - Stronger beliefs in paranormal = seek supernatural content; weaker beliefs in paranormal = seek natural content - Other physical and psychological factors - Novelty of content is stimulating - Adrenaline rush - some enjoy the rush more than others - Excitation transfer process - good feelings following fear response - Disgust - some of us enjoy watching gross content - Disgust involves offense and/or repulsion to noxious stimuli - Can range from blood and guts and gross situations to senseless brutality and moral injustice Fascination with psychopaths - Realistic dictionary psychopaths remain in the minority Effects of watching horror - Can burn a lot of calories due to activation of fight-or-flight system - Increase in white blood cells - circulating levels of disease Death in TV & film - Slightly increased fear of death - Decreased fear of what happens to body - Increased desire to avoid thoughts of death - Decreased positive and neutral acceptance - Can provide a sense of meaning - Functions as a buffer to death anxiety - Depicts fundamental questions about human existence and the meaning of life - TMT: meaning movies may help viewers buffer mortality salience