The relationship of death anxiety to level of moral development.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate what relationship, if any. exists between death anxiety and level of moral development. It was hypothesized that the higher the index of moral development (as measured by Rest's Defining Issues Test -DIT) the higher the level of death anxiety reported as measured by Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (DAS). In addition, comparisons were made between males and females to determine if a significant difference exists between their DAB and DIT scores. The sample consisted of 106 male and 241 female undergraduate students currently enrolled in psychology courses at two midwestern universities. The subjects ranged from 17 to 52 years of age with a mean age of 20.33 for the male subjects and 21.46 years for the female subjects. Each subject completed the DIT and DAS during a regular classroom period. The DIT scores were assigned to three categories which reflected clustering determined by visual inspection of the data. The results indicated a correlation of -.67 (£(.01) between level of moral development and death anxiety. Further analysis revealed that the lowest DIT category had DAS scores that were significantly (£~Ol) higher than the DAS acores of the highest DIT category. The DAS scores of the lowest DIT category were also significantly (~(.05) higher than those of the middle DIT category. The DAS scores of the middle and highest DIT categories did not differ. In addition, females hsd significantly (p<.01) higher death anxiety than males. There was no difference found in DAS scores as a function of age level. The last finding indicated that the females were significantly (p<-05) more developed in moral reasoning than the males.