Studies in the Psychology of Death

  • Irving E. Alexander
  • Arthur M. Adlerstein
Chapter

Abstract

Each man learns early in life that some day he must die. What role does this information play in his development? How does it affect his aims, his wishes, his behavior? At the present time our best sources of information on these questions are outside the field of psychology—in literature, philosophy, religion, and medicine. While such sources have yielded rich insights about the meaning that death has for human beings, there has been little attempt to apply scientific procedures to select among these ideas. Perhaps it is time for this further step to be taken. It is the purpose of this chapter to describe some primitive attempts, utilizing the more traditional techniques and methods of our science, to study some aspects of man’s reaction to death.

Keywords

Religious Group Affective Response Neutral Word Semantic Space Death Anxiety 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1960

Authors and Affiliations

  • Irving E. Alexander
  • Arthur M. Adlerstein

There are no affiliations available

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