High Risk Behaviors in Adolescence and Their Relationship to Death Anxiety and Death Personifications

Abstract

This study examines adolescent perceptions of death with a sample of 220 high school students. Variables examined were personifications of death, death anxiety, locus of control, self-esteem, and level of risk. Chi-square, regression analysis, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. High risk behaviors were negatively correlated with death anxiety. Males had higher risk scores and lower death anxiety scores than females. Females revealed higher death anxiety scores than males and lower self-esteem scores. High self-esteem correlated with an internal locus of control. Most students selected a male, cold, remote death personification image; females were more likely to select a female death personification image than males. These results suggest that adolescents have formulated a perception of death. When asked to personify death most students chose a negative, cold, remote image, with females more likely to select a gentle, comforting death image than males. The grim, terrifying, and robot-like images were more likely to be selected by males but were chosen much less frequently than the cold, remote, and gentle well-meaning images.