Death Concerns in Differential Levels of Consciousness as Functions of Defense Strategy and Religious Belief

This article explores the relationships between two independent variables, defensive style (repression-sensitization) and Jewish religiosity, and death concerns in the context of differential levels of awareness: conscious, preconscious and unconscious. The sample consisted of sixty-four Israeli students, ages nineteen to twenty-seven, of both sexes.

Methodologically, the study attempts to establish the usefulness of a multifaceted design, as compared to static, single variable relationships, in the study of death fear and anxiety. Empirically, it was found that the personality attribute of defensive style was linked systematically to death concern at all levels of consciousness, as predicted, in specific directions: sensitizers were more consciously fearful, while the opposite was true at nonconscious levels, in which repressors were more anxious about death. Religiosity was found to be less dominant in determining death concerns. Only unconsciously was there a difference between religious and nonreligious participants, the former being less anxious than the latter.