Personification of Death: What Types of Death Are Personified by Macabre,Gentle Comforter,Gay Deceiver,and Automaton?

Abstract

Kastenbaum and Aisenberg identified a phenomenon, wherein American subjects personified death in four distinctive figures: Macabre, Gentle Comforter, Gay Deceiver, and Automaton. Until recently, though, researchers did not attempt to answer the question, “What specific aspects of the death experience can be attributed to each of those four personifications?” To answer this question, the current qualitative research asked individuals to envision the causes, places, and contexts of death after imagining each personification of death. The results have revealed that people associated each personification of death with distinct causes, places, and contexts of death: Macabre—murder taking place outside the home, Gentle Comforter—peaceful death by old age at home, Gay Deceiver—death from heart attack, and Automaton—death from cancer in a modern hospital. This article also discusses unanswered questions, limitations, and directions to take its research in the future.

Keywords

personification of death death attitudes symbols psychology of death qualitative study

Introduction

Humans have a tendency to create symbols for concepts not easily defined or comprehended (Jung, 1964). One of humanity’s most important concepts, death, has often been symbolized through the use of anthropomorphic figures (Aries, 1981). For example, the Old Testament depicts death as an angel sent by God, and the New Testament depicts death as a rider of a pale horse. Moving even farther back in human history, ancient Greeks and Romans personified death either as a guardian angel or a wild beast (Craddick, 1972; Deutsch, 1936; Gottlieb, 1959). According to Jung (1964, p. 22), every symbol “… possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional and obvious meaning.” A psychoanalytic view also asserts that each symbol is an unconscious representation of something real that causes anxiety and is therefore repressed (Petocz, 1999). Because awareness of death is the fundamental cause of human anxiety (Becker, 1973; Moore & Williamson, 2003; Schell & Seefeldt, 1991), it is often repressed to the unconscious (Lonetto & Templer, 1986; Zilboorg, 1943).

Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972, 1976) and Kastenbaum (1992, 2000) famously posited that modern American subjects personified death through the use of four distinctive anthropomorphized figures: Macabre, Gentle Comforter, Gay Deceiver, and Automaton. They suggested that what these personified figures of death represent is something not entirely imaginary, that is, they could also represent some “real” aspects of death (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972, p. 154). This claim supports the idea that awareness of death leads to anxiety, which causes said awareness to be repressed and manifested in symbols (Lonetto & Templer, 1983).

The primary focus of the current research is to understand why death is symbolized in these four distinct personifications. More to the point, the current research asks, “If every symbol is a representation of something real, then what particular real aspects of death does each personification symbolize?” Kastenbaum (2000) answered these questions rather vaguely, suggesting that the Gay Deceiver could be the representation of death caused by illicit drug overdose or sexually transmitted disease (e.g., HIV/AIDS) and that the Automaton may embody modern impersonal aspects of death. However, he made those suggestions without empirical data, and the questions have thus remained heretofore unanswered.

Background

Symbolic representations of human death appeared in psychological literature far before Kastenbaum and Aisenberg’s (1972) famous finding. For example, Deutsch (1936) observed two distinct death personifications among his dying patients: a menacing devil and a mighty protective figure, which were similar to those found in ancient Greek and Roman personifications of death. Nagy (1948) found that young Hungarian children often personified death as a monstrous, violent figure that resembles the Grim Reaper (see also Yakulis, 1975; Yang & Chen, 2002).

Based on Janis’s (1958) concept of defensive libidinization of an aggressor, McClelland (1963) identified a unique personification of death particularly common among seriously ill women. Taking the form of both a lover and a devil, or “a gay seducer with a demonic temper,” as McClelland (1963, p. 106) described it, this psychological phenomenon became known as the Harlequin Complex and likely served as the basis for Kastenbaum’s and Aisenberg’s (1972) Gay Deceiver personification.

Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972) used data obtained from 240 American interview subjects to offer the most widely recognized theory on the personification of death. They found that their subjects personified death using four specific anthropomorphic figures the authors named Macabre, Gentle Comforter, Gay Deceiver, and Automaton. These four personifications of death would later be closely replicated in Lonetto’s (1982) work. Macabre is “the vivid, horror-laden, disfigured personification of death that was so prevalent in fourteenth century and fifteenth century Europe ( … )” (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972, p. 155). Gentle Comforter is a “wise, and noble person” (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972, p. 158) for whom “Father Time received much credit as a source” (Kastenbaum, 2000, p. 143). According to these original statements, Macabre and Gentle Comforter likely reflect typical Western symbols (Aries, 1981; Deutsch, 1936; Gottlieb, 1959; Plank & Plank, 1978) corresponding to the two universal attitudes toward death: “bad” and “good” death (Abramovitch, 2000; Seale & van der Geest, 2004; Spronk, 2004). The Gay Deceiver is a figure that is “poised and sophisticated” but “elusive and hypocritical” (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972, p. 155). This attractive but deceptive personification of death shares commonalities with the Harlequin Complex: death as a lover and devil (Greenberger, 1965, 1966; McClelland, 1963) Finally, the Automaton is an “objective, unfeeling, automatic, and soulless” figure (Kastenbaum & Aisenberg, 1972, pp. 157–158). According to the original authors, Automaton represents the modern characterization of death as the termination of the physical body devoid of any spiritual meaning (Kastenbaum, 1981, 2000).

After Kastenbaum’s and Aisenberg’s findings, research on the personification of death continued sporadically. One line of research was to investigate the association between the level of death anxiety and the characteristics of death personification. For example, it was found that individuals with high death anxiety personified death as Macabre, while those with lower death anxiety levels personified it as Gentle Comforter or Automaton (Nogas, Schweitzer, & Grumet, 1974; see also Cheung & Ho, 2004). However, in another study, Lonetto (1982) found that death-anxious individuals personified death as Gay Deceiver rather than as Macabre. Also, Lonetto, Fleming, Clare, and Gorman (1976) found that while extremely death-anxious people perceived death as either female or male, those with little or no death anxiety saw it as sexless. Yet, a more recent study by Cotter (2003) shows death anxiety levels carry no significant relation to the way people personify death. McDonald and Hilgendorf (1986) found that those having a positive image of death personified death as being young, and Bassett and Williams (2002) later found that less death-anxious individuals depicted death with a more positive image.

Other lines of research on the personification of death examined sex (or gender) as a research variable (either independent or dependent). It has been observed that males’ depictions of death have generally been more violent than those of females (Papageorgis, 1966; Tamm & Granqvist, 1995) According to Kastenbaum and Herman (1997), female participants most frequently personified death as a gentle image, with cold and grim images coming in second and third, respectively. Their same study showed male participants most frequently personifying death as a cold image, with gentle and grim images appearing with equal frequency. Tamm (1996) found that a sample of health-care professionals personified death as an old man wearing dark clothes, whereas life they depicted as a woman or child. Cotter’s (2003) research showed that most student participants depicted death as a cold and remote male figure; however, women were more likely than men to personify death as a feminine Gentle Comforter.

Other interesting findings related to the personification of death include the following. Lonetto (1982) found that awareness of time relates to Macabre or Gentle Comforter. Bassett and Williams (2002) found that mortuary science students (i.e., those studying to work in funeral service) personified death more favorably than other university students. Bassett, McCann, and Cate (2008) found that people more frequently associate their own death with Gentle Comforter than they do the deaths of others.

The Current Study

Proceeding from the aforementioned studies, the current research empirically investigated what specific real aspects of death individuals attribute to each of the four personifications of death. The following general expectations were speculated from a series of empirical observations and also claims suggested by Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972, 1976) and Kastenbaum (1992, 2000):

The Macabre death personification is likely related to certain aspects of death generally considered to be “bad death.”

The Gentle Comforter death personification is likely related to certain aspects of death generally considered to be “good death.”

The Gay Deceiver death personification is likely related to certain aspects of death considered as morally punitive for self-indulgent behaviors such as unprotected sex or illicit drug use.

The Automaton death personification is likely related to certain aspects of death that are modern, impersonal, and unemotional.

In the current research, each individual envisioned real death after they had imagined and visualized one of the four death personifications. This procedure is conceptually inverted from the procedure applied in most prior research where an individual envisioned a personified symbol based on real death.

The data analyses were conducted to extract specific components of death based on three sources of information: (a) cause, (b) place, and (c) context of death, which people envisioned after imagining each personification of death, and, finally, the specific condition of death was constructed, based on those components, for each personification of death.

Method

Participants

A total of 260 U.S. residents of both sexes (57% females) and all adult age groups (M_age = 38.0; the age ranges from 20 to 75 years) were recruited to participate via online survey. Participants were randomly assigned to groups of 65 individuals and completed one of the four questionnaires (i.e., conditions), each corresponding to a different personification of death. The current sample should accurately reflect the general characteristics of the American population, in that Internet-based data-collection generally renders less regional, socioeconomic, educational, age, and gender biases (as compared with data collected from a sample of college students). No significant heterogeneity was identified with the current sample.

Materials

Each questionnaire began with the scenario in which a personification of death was standing next to a dying person. Subsequent questions asked a participant to envision the cause, place, and context of the death of the person depicted in the scenario. The full questionnaire can be found in the Appendix.

Each personification of death was represented in its corresponding questionnaire by the same adjectives that Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972, 1976) and Kastenbaum (1992, 2000) consistently used in their work to describe each personification of death. Three adjectives were chosen for each based on several criteria, as follows:

Each set of three adjectives must concisely and accurately represent each personified image of death.

In each set, the meaning of one adjective must not overlap with the meaning of the other two adjectives (e.g., taciturn vs. mute).

An adjective must not convey any concepts potentially implying death per se (e.g., emaciated, comforting, horrible, etc.).

An adjective must not imply sex or age (e.g., enticing, old, young, etc.)

As a result, the following set of three adjectives was selected for each personification of death:

Macabre—Monstrous, disfigured, and decaying (from 14 adjectives identified)

Gentle Comforter—Gentle, wise, and noble (from 6 adjectives identified)

Gay Deceiver—Attractive, poised, and deceitful (from 13 adjectives identified)

Automaton—Emotionless, taciturn, and indifferent (from 13 adjectives identified)

Procedure

Each of the four questionnaires consisted of an imagined scenario followed by questions regarding the death depicted in the scenario. In each circumstance, a person is dying, and each death figure, described using the corresponding three adjectives introduced above, has appeared next to this person. The prompt instructed each participant to firmly visualize and imagine the death figure described by those adjectives, and it forbade them to move on to subsequent questions otherwise (i.e., the questionnaire included the two questions used as manipulation checkers). The subsequent questions asked each participant to imagine why and where this person was dying, as well as any additional contextual information related to the death of this person.

All procedures conformed to the ethical principles of psychological research and approved by the internal review board, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Data Analysis

Content analysis extracted and examined any causes, places, and contexts of death appearing as responses more frequently in one condition than in others. The responses made in each condition were also compared with the responses of the total sample involving the participants of all four conditions.

Results

Analysis of Causes of Death

Total sample

The aggregate data show that, in responding to the four questionnaires, participants envisioned the following six major causes of death: (a) cancer, (b) old-age, (c) car accident, (d) killed by another person (or an animal in a few cases), (e) heart-attack, and (f) any other illness. These six major causes of death accounted for more than 90% of the causes of death envisioned in each personification condition: Macabre—93.8%, Gentle Comforter—98.4%, Gay Deceiver—93.8%, and Automaton—95.2%. Apart from these six major causes of death, no other cause of death was imagined by more than two individuals in each condition. As a result, the proportions of those six major causes of death in the total sample (see Figure 1) were used as the base rates to which their proportions in each condition were compared.

Figure 1.

The proportions of the six major causes of death, envisioned by the participants of the total sample including all four conditions.

Macabre

“Killed” was more frequently imagined as the cause of death in the Macabre condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 2). In addition, “old age” and “cancer,” the two most frequently envisioned causes of death in the total sample (Figure 1), were envisioned to a lesser degree in the Macabre condition (see the upper-left graph of Figure 3). Interestingly, since the proportion of “car accident” in the Macabre condition was not drastically different from its proportion in the total sample (see the upper-left graph of Figure 3 ), the Macabre personification of death was more likely to be attributed to violent death, which is intentional (e.g., stabbing, gunshot, etc., except suicide) rather than accidental (e.g., car accident).

Figure 2.

A comparison of the proportions of the six major causes of death among the four personifications of death.

Figure 3.

The proportions of the six major causes of death, which participants envisioned after imagining each of the four personifications of death.

Gentle Comforter

“Old age” was more frequently envisioned as the cause of death in the Gentle Comforter condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 2), and it was the most frequently envisioned cause of death in this condition (see the upper-right graph of Figure 3).

Gay Deceiver

“Heart attack” was more frequently envisioned as the cause of death in the Gay Deceiver condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 2). On the other hand, the proportions of the other five major causes of death in the Gay Deceiver condition were not drastically different from their proportions in the total sample (see the lower-left graph of Figure 3).

Automaton

“Cancer” was more frequently envisioned as the cause of death in the Automaton condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 2). On the other hand, “car accident” and “killed” were less frequently envisioned in the Automaton condition compared with their proportions in the total sample (see the lower-right graph of Figure 3). According to these results, Automaton was less likely to be attributed to dramatic or violent death, the aspects of death to which Macabre was more likely to be attributed.

Analysis of Places of Death

Total sample

Responding to the four questionnaires, the participants of total sample envisioned three major places of death: (a) hospital (including hospices and other types of medical or health facilities), (b) home (the dying person’s own house), and (c) outside (such as a street, alley, mountain, bank lobby, or any other nonmedical public space). Those three major places of death accounted for more than 99% of the places of death envisioned in each personification condition. Consequently, other minor (or unidentifiable) places of death were not considered further in subsequent analysis. The proportions of those three major places of death in the total sample, hospital—46%, home—29%, and outside—25% (Figure 4), were used as the base rates to which their proportions in each condition were compared.

Figure 4.

The proportions of the three major places of death, envisioned by the participants of the total sample including all four conditions.

Macabre

“Outside” was more frequently envisioned as the place of death in the Macabre condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 5). On the other hand, “home” was less frequently envisioned in this condition than in the others (Figure 5). The proportion of “hospital” in this condition was not drastically different from its proportion in the total sample (see the upper-left graph of Figure 6).

Figure 5.

The comparison of the proportions of the three major places of death among the four personifications of death.

Figure 6.

The proportions of the three major places of death, which participants envisioned after imagining each of the four personifications of death.

Gentle Comforter

“Home” was more frequently envisioned as the place of death in the Gentle Comforter condition than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 5). On the other hand, “Outside” was less frequently envisioned in this condition than in the others (Figure 5). The proportion of “Hospital” in this condition was not drastically different from its proportion in the total sample (see the upper-right graph of Figure 6).

Gay Deceiver

In the subsample of the Gay Deceiver condition, the proportions of the three major places of death were not drastically different from their proportions in the total sample (see the lower-left graph of Figure 6).

Automaton

“Hospital” was more frequently envisioned as the place of death in the Automaton condition than in any of other condition (Figure 5). The proportion of “Outside” in this condition was less than its proportion in the total sample, while the proportion of “Home” was not drastically different from its proportion in the total sample (see the lower-right graph of Figure 6).

Analysis of the Context of Death

The last question of each questionnaire asked participants to envision the context of the death. In this open-ended question, each participant freely described what they had imagined about the death in each scenario. The analysis of the responses was conducted using an online text analyzer (Word Counter & Text Analyzer; http://sporkforge.com/text/word_count.php) to extract, count, and organize words or phrases that appeared more frequently in one condition than in the others. The results were then graphed to compare these words and phrases across the four conditions.

Macabre

The words kill, killer, killed, killing, and murder were more frequently used when describing the context of the death in the Macabre condition than in any of the other three conditions (see the left-graph in Figure 7). On the other hand, the word, family, less frequently appeared in this condition than in any of any of the other three conditions (see the right-graph in Figure 7).

Figure 7.

Words or phrases which were more (or less) frequently used in the Macabre condition than any of the other three conditions for describing the context of death.

Gentle Comforter

The words peace, peaceful, and peacefully were more frequently used to describe the context of the death in the Gentle Comforter condition than in any of the other three conditions (see the left-graph in Figure 8). Although the word family appeared in the context of the death in the Gentle Comforter condition with roughly the same frequency as in the Gay Deceiver and Automaton conditions (see the right-graph in Figure 7); the phrase surrounded by, when it preceded family or such words as friend or loved one, more frequently appeared in the Gentle Comforter condition than in any of the other three conditions (see the center-graph in Figure 8). Finally, the word life more frequently appeared in the Gentle Comforter condition than in the others, generally followed by a positive word such as accomplished, fulfilling, or long (see the right graph in Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Words or phrases which were more frequently used in the Gentle Comforter condition than in any of the other three conditions for describing the context of death.

Gay Deceiver

The word heart was used to describe the context of the death in the Gay Deceiver condition more frequently than in any of the other three conditions (Figure 9). No additional words or phrases appeared with greater frequency in the Gay Deceiver condition than in any of the other three conditions.

Figure 9.

Words or phrases which were more frequently used in the Gay Deceiver condition than in any of the other three conditions for describing the context of death.

Automaton

The words machine (e.g., “medical machine”) and facility (e.g., “hospital facility”) appeared only in the Automaton condition to describe the context of death (see the left-graph in Figure 10). In addition, although the word hospital was used throughout all four conditions with nearly equal frequency, the related word hospital bed more frequently appeared in the Automaton condition than in any of the other three conditions (see the center graph in Figure 10). Most interestingly, the words pain and suffering less frequently appeared in the Automaton condition than in any of the other three conditions, whereas its antonym, painless, appeared only in the Automaton condition (see the right graph in Figure 10).

Figure 10.

Words or phrases which were more (or less) frequently used in the Automaton condition than in any of the other three conditions for describing the context of death.

Discussion

The current qualitative research investigated what particular real aspects of death can be attributed to each of the four personifications of death that Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972) initially observed. Based on a series of claims made in their original research and subsequent empirical findings, it was speculated that (a) Macabre is likely associated with certain aspects of “bad death,” (b) Gentle Comforter is likely associated with certain aspects of “good death,” (c) Gay Deceiver is likely associated with a morally punitive death following self-indulgent behavior such as illicit drug use or unprotected sex, and (d) Automaton is likely associated with the impersonal and unemotional aspects of death in the modern era. In the end, the specific components of death were extracted from each personification of death, based on the three sources of information: causes, places, and contexts. Some of those components corresponded to the initial speculations, while others contradicted them, often leading to intriguing further speculations.

According to the results presented in the previous section, people associated the Macabre personification of death with several components of bad death: intentional, violent, solitary, and taking place outside of the home. The perception of a particular type of death as “good” or “bad” is a universal phenomenon, despite some cultural variations (Abramovitch, 2000). For instance, deliberate and violent deaths are generally considered bad deaths across most or all cultures (Abramovitch, 2000; Counts & Counts, 2004; Spronk, 2004; van der Geest, 2004). Personifying death as a monstrous figure, such as the Grim Reaper, has been common in Europe, and those figures have historically been regarded as the symbols of bad death (Aries, 1981; Deutsch, 1936; Gottlieb, 1959; Plank & Plank, 1978). The Macabre personification of death likely stems from those traditional symbols of “bad death.” Consistent with its manifestation of bad death, the Macabre had the weakest association of the four conditions with positive concepts such as “family” and “home,” which are considered important components of good death (Payne, Langley-Evans, & Hillier, 1996; van der Geest, 2004).

On the other hand, those surveyed in the current research associated the Gentle Comforter personification of death with several components of “good death” (Kastenbaum & Normand, 1990). “Home” is a particularly strong component of good death, particularly when it, as opposed to the hospital, was the location of death, but also came as part of a spiritual metaphor for death, such as “going home to God” (Long, 2004). In addition, good deaths tend to be “peaceful” (Hattori, McCubbin, & Ishida, 2006; Payne et al., 1996; Spronk, 2004) and to come at the end of long, well-spent “lives” (Counts & Counts, 2004; Long, 2004; Spronk, 2004; van der Geest, 2004). Peaceful death may not only involve physical aspects but can also entail psychological aspects, such as having finished all business, making peace with others (e.g., family members), and being at peace with one’s own death (van der Geest, 2004).

The results for the Gay Deceiver personification of death did not conform to its prior interpretation. This personification was originally developed from the psychoanalytic concept that death can be perceived as the image of a “lover (or lure)” and “devil (or moral punishment)” (Greenberger, 1965, 1966). Accordingly, Kastenbaum (2000) speculated—albeit without much empirical evidence—that the Gay Deceiver might represent a death related to drug overdose or complications from unprotected sex (e.g., HIV/AIDS). However, the current research has rendered no evidence to support this speculation. His original claim is also in line with the perception of death as erotic, as the Harlequin Complex suggests; however, earlier research has found that such a perception of death may not be common among psychologically normal individuals (Bromberg & Schilder, 1933; Papageorgis, 1966). Furthermore, even if such a “libidinized” attitude toward death had been known to reduce the anxiety of death (Janis, 1958; Greenberger, 1965), the Gay Deceiver personification was later found to have a positive correlation with “self-reported” (and thus “conscious”) death-anxiety (Lonetto, 1982). Since each of the other three personifications of death were attributed to specific common causes of death in the United States (e.g., murder, old age, and cancer), speculation that the Gay Deceiver is related to death via heart attack, another common cause of death in the United States, would not be unfounded. But why is this the case? In a study by Vig, Davenport, and Pearlman (2002), participants considered accidental or unprepared deaths to be bad deaths; however, those same people paradoxically considered a heart attack as the cause of a good death simply because it is “quick.” Furthermore, those people named disfigurement and “messiness” as components of bad death, and it is true that these components could be more absent in death from a heart attack compared with other types of accidental death (e.g., murder, car accident, etc.). The symptoms of a heart attack often hit suddenly and unexpectedly (Hutton & Perkins, 2008; Sutherland & Jensen, 2000), and survivors often fear that another attack could occur at any moment (Wang, Thompson, Chair, & Twinn, 2008). How can such a contradictory death, quick and clean but simultaneously accidental and unexpected, possibly be personified? Certainly, people would personify such a death with a figure that is quite distinct from the figure they use to personify other types of death.

According to the current results, the Automaton personification of death relates to deaths that take place in a modern medical facility—for example, a cancer patient lies on a hospital bed under sedation, while surrounded by medical machines and equipment. One interesting finding was that the Automaton personification likely involves the concept of painless death, one component of good death (Hattori et al., 2006; Payne et al., 1996; Seymour, Bellamy, Gott, Ahmedzai, & Clark, 2002; Vig et al., 2002). However, in the current research, a painless death was mysteriously absent in the good components of death extracted from Gentle Comforter. This phenomenon may be explained by an interesting speculation that painless death as a good death is a relatively modern conception. According to Winkler (1993), 15th- and 16th-century Europeans, as well as others from earlier time periods, considered physical pain as a punishment from God, which had to be endured and would continue even after death in places such as Hell. Therefore, prior to modern advances in medical technology, to relieve the pain, accompanying death was not considered a serious possibility.

Altogether, these findings suggest that contemporary Americans may associate each of these personifications of death most strongly with a particular condition of death, and these associations can be described as follows: (1) Macabre is likely associated with solitary death outside the home, especially by homicide; (2) Gentle Comforter is likely associated with peacefully dying at home of old age, while surrounded by family members; (3) Gay Deceiver is likely associated with a sudden death from a heart attack; and (4) Automaton is likely associated with dying in a modern hospital bed, under heavy sedation, from cancer.

Further research could generate more empirical evidence around two psychological processes that were not the primary focus of the current research. First, as observed in the current research, each personification of death possibly leads people to imagine certain specific aspects of real death. For example, in thinking about the Gentle Comforter, one might be more inclined to picture conditions of death that are peaceful. Conversely, and more in line with previous studies, certain aspects of real death could prompt people to imagine a particular personification of death. A person’s specific feelings about death, which result from that person’s death-related experiences and preconceptions, could influence the way(s) in which they personify death (Plank & Plank, 1978). For example, individuals with more negative attitudes toward death may apply more negative figures to personify death (Bassett & Williams, 2002; Cheung & Ho, 2004; Nogas, Schweitzer, & Grumet, 1974). Death-anxious individuals may personify death using terrifying figures because such images effectively represent their own terrified emotions concerning death. In this respect, the psychological process mentioned above, in which a personification of death leads one to a imagine a particular real-life death, corresponds to the process by which an individual responds to experimental stimuli; while the psychological process moving in the opposite direction—that is, from a real death to a personification of death—could rather be used as a psychological assessment. Additional research may be required to empirically clarify these issues.

The purpose of the current research was not to draw any hasty conclusions from the results, but rather to supplement the existing research and discussion on this topic with new empirical data. The current results were aligned with some of the prevailing speculations but offer a greater level of specificity with regard to the components and conditions of death for each personification. For example, since the figure of the Automaton may have developed in response to certain novel modes of death that have become familiar in the modern era, it is likely that the figure of the Automaton will prompt contemporary Americans to think of a particular condition of death—a highly medicalized or sedated death in a hospital from cancer. In the case of Gay Deceiver, its association with a libidinized (or morally punitive) death was not identified in the current results, which instead offered the possibility of a new interpretation.

It may be fruitful for future researchers to apply different research methodologies to these same research questions. Alternatively, similar research may be conducted within different sample populations, especially across different cultures. Finally, it will be intriguing to examine whether people in the 21st century continue to rely on these four typical personifications death, as people in the United States 50 years ago did.

Appendix

Questionnaire

Please imagine a person dying, for whatever reason, at a certain time and place. Just before this person takes his or her last breath, “Death” appears before this person in human form. Suppose that this Death-figure is:

monstrous, disfigured, and decaying. (Condition 1: Macabre)

gentle, wise, and noble (Condition 2: Gentle Comforter)

attractive, poised, and deceitful. (Condition 3: Gay Deceiver)

emotionless, taciturn, and indifferent. (Condition 4: Automaton)

Please close your eyes for a moment and imagine this personified version of Death in great detail. Do not go on to the next question until you have a clear picture of this monstrous, disfigured, and decaying Death-figure in your mind.

Did you have a clear picture in your mind of the Death-figure, exactly as described earlier?

Yes No

How easy or difficult did you find it to imagine the particular death-figure described above (monstrous, disfigured, and decaying)? There is no correct answer; answer very honestly.

Difficult Slightly difficult Neither difficult nor easy Slightly easy Easy

The following questions pertain to the hypothetical death of the person, as you imagined it earlier.

Please take a guess as to why this person is dying and describe the cause of the death in this imagined scenario (be specific).

Please take a guess as to where this person is dying and describe the location (be specific).

Please describe the overall context of this person's death in this imagined scenario.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Youngjin Kang, PhD, is a research affiliate in the psychology department at New Mexico State University and a hospice volunteer providing emotional support for dying patients. His research considers how a person's thoughts and behaviors can be affected by their views about death and/or their first-hand experiences with death and dying.

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