PSYC MT 2

Euphemism

common word/phrase intended to soften the harshness of a literal meaning (ex: saying passed away instead of died)

The Void Hypothesis

When a family member dies, a void is created in the family structure that requires a new homeostasis

detachment

Transgenerational Grief

grief passed down through generations (ex: family secrets, avoidance of discussing the loss)

Responsibilities of the larger community (friends, neighbours, etc) in death and loss?

• Support and facilitate mourning (rituals/funerals/memorials)

• Help the bereaved remember the deceased

• Assist the bereaved in the grieving process

Ways death can be disruptive for family functioning?

• Holding the deceased higher and in a brighter light / idealized image of the deceased (can be especially disruptive in a family with multiple children where one children passed – siblings can feel like they will never be able to live up to the deceased)

• Legal issues (fighting for the will)

• Resentment following a death

• Having different timelines for grieving

• Avoiding talking about it

• Handling holidays and celebrations (difficult time feeling like they are in a space that they can talk about the deceased / feeling uncomfortable being in a space where people are not talking about the deceased)

• Overprotective behaviour

• Emotional distancing

Is divorce more likely to occur following a death?

Although many believe that bereaved parents are at a risk of divorce and a death of a child DOES cause strain in relationships the majority of marital relationships survive this challenge and can even be strengthened

What can complicate or worsen the grieving process in families?

conflicts and disagreements

• on the other hand, cohesion, affection and good communication in families appear to mitigate grief symptoms

What happens with children after the loss of someone?

Children are often excluded from discussions of death, visits to see a dying person, and funeral/memorial services

But this may lead to avoidant responses to loss, as well as anger and fear

Involving children or providing them with books about death can lead to more positive perspectives and coping

What are the responsibilities of the larger community (friends, neighbours, etc) in death and loss?

• Support and facilitate mourning rituals/funerals/memorials

• Help the bereaved remember the deceased

• Assist the bereaved in the grieving process

What can be good outcomes from a death in regards to social cohesion?

• brings family closer

• improves communication

• strengthening of relationships with loved ones

How can death alter family/cultural legacy?

by altering family or community traditions, values and rituals over time

Legal options in death

• living wills

• power of attorney

living wills/advance directives

Legal documents that allow competent individuals to indicate their preferences for care before care 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 personal life (e.g. meals and clothing) if they become mentally incapable of making such decisions

• POA ceases at death

Does denial actually help?

The tendency for the dying people to simultaneously hold two opposite views of the inevitability of death:

1. Denying death and minimizing the bleakness of one’s prognosis while

2. Simultaneously making plans for one’s death by completing a will, arranging burial plots, etc.

Weisman suggested that denial prevents us from being overwhelmed by the terror of death, allowing us to deal with the reality and make appropriate decisions and plans

What are the psychological functions of effects of these various legal options in dying?

1. Enhanced Perceived Control

2. Autonomy / Informed Consent

3. Stability for Family Members

enhance perceived control

Perceiving more control at the end of life is related to an increased likelihood of death acceptance

autonomy/informed consent

knowing what is happening to you at all times (either through implying consent or explicitly stating your consent)

funeral service

held to memorialize a deceased person with their body present

• funerals can be either “open casket” (allowing people to view the body) or closed

memorial service

held to memorialize a deceased person without their body present; may include food, drinks, etc.

rite of passage

a public ceremony or event marking an important stage or transition in a person’s life

funeral’s functions (positive)

• Acknowledge the death of a community member (irreversibility of death is emphasized, viewing the body can promote a sense of finality)

• 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

irrespective of culture, religion or value system, death is usually followed by…

a funeral service

For many people, the ____ can be the first point of counselling they receive

funeral director

Are funerals actually helpful?

Most people tend to report believing that funeral rituals support their process of adjustment

• Although funerals and rituals are recommended, little is known about their effectiveness (many studies found no correlations between level of participation in a funeral and grief adjustment

• more beneficial in short term

possible negative effects of the funeral system?

may encourage disenfranchised grief by failing to acknowledge certain personal relationships

• ritual may be used to create distance from overwhelming emotion resulting in delayed expressions of grief

the benefit of after-death rituals including funerals depends on…

the ability of the bereaved to shape those rituals and say goodbye in a way which is meaningful for them

challenges and difficulties with the funeral experience

• Making decisions about the funeral

• The financial burden

• Interpersonal challenges (e.g., seeing unwelcome people, seeing family and friends, interpersonal conflict)

• Misinformation about the industry creating family unease (e.g., exaggeration of unethical practices)

the financial burden

expensive to have a funeral ! (funeral industry is worth $1.6 billion in canada)

unethical practices in the funeral industry

• Misleading information about embalming or burial (ex: no law in Canada requiring embalming of a body unless the deceased is to be shipped outside of the province or country for a funeral service and burial)

• Mismanaged prepaid funeral plans or pre-needs

• Overcharging for products and upselling

• Wrongful burial or cremation.

• Theft of personal belongings of the deceased

what plays a role in symbolic immortality?

funeral service, burial/cremation of body and way in which a person is memorialized

making decisions in advance (prior to one’s death) can enhance one’s sense of symbolic immortality

alternatives to the traditional funeral

• celebrations of life

• green burials

• aquamation/resomation

• body preservation (cryonics)

• memorial fireworks

• plastination

celebrations of life

memorial events that are more concerned with telling the story of the deceased; greater flexibility, fewer formalities

green burials

environmentally friendly way to bury someone after death (aims to minimize environmental harm by allowing body to return naturally to the earth)

• typically not embalmed with conventional chemicals

• ex: capsula mundi (biodegradable pod that turns your body into a tree), burial pods, bio urns, eternal reefs

aquamation/resomation

an alternative to traditional flame cremation, uses heated water and an alkaline chemical solution to accelerate the natural decomposition of the body to a skeleton. skeletonis then crushed into a powder as in cremation

body preservation (cryonics)

practice of preserving a legally dead person's body, or sometimes only their brain, at extremely low temperatures in the hope that future medical technology might be able to revive them

memorial fireworks

way of commemorating someone who has died by launching fireworks (typically, ashes in fireworks)

plastination (body worlds)

a body preservation technique that replaces water and fat in human or animal tissues with special plastics, allowing the body to be preserved for long periods without decomposing in the usual way

• usually put in body worlds museum for people to learn about the human body

What is most likely to stir emotions and evoke a response to death(s) in the media?

images of tragedy and death (particularly very shocking images such as corpses or people jumping off buildings)

suicide contagion

the phenomenon in which exposure to another person's suicide or suicidal behaviour may increase another person's risk of suicidal thoughts or behaviour

suicide clusters

occurs when a greater-than-expected number of suicides or suicide-related behaviours happen close together in time, in a particular geographical area, or within a specific group of people (typically among young people from suicide contagion)

culture

distinctive customs, values, beliefs, knowledge, art, and language of a society or a community

• these values and concepts are passed on from generation to generation, and they are the basis for everyday behaviours and practices

religion

an organized system of beliefs, practices, rituals and symbols designed

(a) to facilitate closeness to the sacred or transcendent

(b) to foster an understanding of one’s relation and responsibility to others in living together in a community

different views of death (religion)

• some cultures and religions envision a circular pattern of life and death in which a person dies and is reborn multiple times (e.g.,Hinduism)

• others view death as occurring only once with the spirit living on in the afterlife (e.g., Christianity).

• others believe that the dead and the living co-exist and the dead can influence the living (e.g., some First Nations, segments of Buddhism).

perspectives on death: eastern religions

Hinduism – When a person dies, the soul travels for some time to another world and returns again to the earth to continue its journey; deceased are cremated

Buddhism – People are reincarnated, status depends on previous life; deceased are cremated or buried.

Taoism – We are of the Tao (the way of the natural order of the universe) when we are alive and of the Tao when we die; deceased are buried or cremated

perspectives on death: abrahamic religion

Christianity – Those who do not follow Jesus will end up in Hell, while those who do will achieve salvation and end up in Heaven; deceased are buried or cremated

Islam – The present life is only a preparation for the next realm of existence; deceased are buried

Judaism – Those who have lived a worthy life will be rewarded in the afterlife; deceased are buried

perspectives on death: indigenous beliefs

Among First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, traditional beliefs regarding death and dying are sometimes combined with Christian views

• beliefs vary among Indigenous cultures; many believe that the deceased live on in the spirit world

• concept of “completing the circle” is common among First Nations

• many Indigenous cultures believe that the living can communicate with the deceased through rituals and in dreams. The deceased also visit the living.

How many people believe in an afterlife?

The majority of the world’s population believes in some form of life after death

• although belief in God has declined in Western countries, there is evidence that belief in an afterlife has remained steady or increased

• COVID increased religiosity for some countries while others lost their belief after not being able to attend churches, etc

How many people believe in reincarnation?

Belief in reincarnation is common in Eastern religions but less common in the West (though some Christian sub-sects have shown interest)

A growing number of Westerners believe in reincarnation without any particular connection to Eastern (or New Age) religions

Factors in afterlife belief

• Religion and culture

• Religious affiliation and church attendance have stronger beliefs in afterlife and heaven specifically

• NDEs and post-death sensory experiences have stronger beliefs in afterlife and reincarnation specifically

dead-I

a tendency to imagine the state of death as a continuation of the self (even in the absence of afterlife beliefs)

How do people imagine death?

• 50% said they imagine their own death as something they “observe”, a tendency to imagine death as a spectator

• 35% said it was impossible to imagine death as the absence of themselves

Afterlife beliefs are…

intuitive because when we imagine our death, we insert our consciousness into it

While many believe that the psychobiological and perceptual states are ceased once death occurs…

many believed that emotion, desire and knowledge continued

Dualistic pattern of thinking

biological processes cease in a more pervasive fashion at death than do psychological processes (common way of thinking across cultures)

Intuitive dualism

refers to our natural assumption about different outcomes for the physical body and mind

(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

• Death anxiety

• Making sense of the world

• Grief responses / adjustment following loss

Bleak or uncertain afterlife views show poor adjustment

Belief in reincarnation showed…

less helplessness, guilt and anger

Belief in hell was associated with…

lower rates of crime

Death affirming

handling the idea of death fairly well and are more accepting of death (more eastern cultures as the majority conceive death as a mere transition)

Death denying

a great aversion to the idea of dying (most western cultures tend to be death denying, more likely to equate death of body with death of self)

• some evidence shows that the death anxiety tends to be higher in this society

Relationships between religiosity and death anxiety

• Religious belief may cause death anxiety: a positive correlation

• Death anxiety motivates religious belief: a positive correlation

• Religious belief mitigates death anxiety: a negative correlation

Fear of death ranked highest to lowest (religions)

1. Muslim

2. Christian / Catholic / Protestant

3. Buddhist / Hindu

4. Non-religious

positive and negative correlation between religiosity and death anxiety

Intrinsic religiosity (i.e., religiosity driven by internal needs and motives) tends to be negatively correlated with death anxiety

Extrinsic religiosity (i.e., religiosity driven by external pressures or reinforcements) tends to be positively correlated with death anxiety.

People with ____ religious beliefs have the most high death anxiety

moderate

What in specific causes death anxiety regarding afterlife beliefs?

expectation of reward or punishment in the afterlife (rather than a mere belief in the afterlife)

Uncertainties in the outcome in the afterlife that cause death anxiety

(a) belief in a demanding and vindictive God

(b) uncertainty about the reality of an afterlife

(c) obedience to religious teachings

(d) uncertainty of divine forgiveness

If A and B are high, fear of death will be high due to uncertainty over outcome

If C and D are also high, then fear of death may be mitigated due to reduced uncertainty

Pleasant beliefs about afterlife

(e.g., union with God, reunion with loved ones) were associated with reduced symptomology

Unpleasant beliefs about afterlife

(e.g., reincarnated into another life form, afterlife being unpleasant) were associated with increased symptomology

Individualistic cultures

focus on uniqueness, independence, agency; value identity and self-enhancement

(australia, canada, usa, uk, etc)

Collectivistic cultures

focus on relationships and communion; value community and selflessness

(south korea, brazil, china, chile, mexico, etc)

Which culture shows greater emotional expressivity?

individualistic cultures, while collectivistic cultures tend towards restraint/suppression

in a collectivistic culture (china), findings found…

• more intense mourning rituals in China, despite being higher in emotional restraint

• a more acute pattern of grieving in the early months of bereavement (more distress and poorer perceived health)

• a more rapid recovery (lower distress 18 months later);

• and greater levels of grief processing early on

how do collectivistic cultures and individualistic cultures perceive funerals?

• people in collectivistic cultures are more likely to see funerals as opportunities for social bonding and “grand celebration.”

• people in individualistic cultures tend to see funerals as opportunities for mourning; often more private and solemn

For indigenous peoples, european colonization involved in a series of….

highly traumatic stressors including..

• genocide, new disease, loss of land, criminalization/loss of culture, and forced assimilation

• has been estimated that up to 90-95% of Indigenous people died

transgenerational trauma

trauma passed down through generations

• mechanisms involved can include hearing stories of trauma, PTSD, epigenetics

historical unresolved grief

phenomenon that contributes to the current social pathology of high rates of suicide, homicide, domestic violence, child abuse, alcoholism and other social problems.

Why are Indigenous populations at an increased risk of complicated/traumatic grief?

• 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 schools

How does the disruption of aboriginal burial grounds impact Indigenous communities?

interference with funeral rituals and important afterlife beliefs of Indigenous cultures

How people now determine/treat the rights of the dead

• People now don't have much as consideration/respect for dead bodies (very old)

• Are there living relatives?

• Can the remains stay intact?

• What is the value?

Why do most African-American individuals display more traumatic grief compared to their white peers?

Historically, the African-American family has adapted to threats from slavery, racism, and poverty by expanding kin networks that may include aunts, cousins, grandparents, uncles, and kin who are unrelated by blood

traumatic grief in holocaust survivors

significantly high

traumatic grief in refugees

many refugees fleeing persecution experience trauma and prolonged symptoms of grief and that this compromises their ability to adapt following relocation

traumatic grief following mass shootings

very high, often occuring in the USA

survivor’s guilt

feelings of guilt experienced by those who have survived a traumatic event (when others have not)

• now a recognized symptom of PTSD, but can also occur on its own (i.e.,without a diagnosis)

• more likely for individuals who have experienced childhood trauma as well as those with anxiety and depression

• ex: military officers, holocaust survivors, aids survivors

collective grief

socially shared grief, as seen after tragedies & natural disasters (ex: twin tower attacks in new york)

• suggested that social media can play a positive role during collective experiences of grief by widening communities to include support from weak ties

ecological grief

a grief that is a natural and legitimate response to the collective experience of ecological loss (biodiversity, climate change)

climate change is likely to lead to ….

heightened mortality salience; mortality defenses may either limit or advance climate action