Why do we fear death? The construction and validation of the Reasons for Death Fear Scale

Abstract

Previous research has disclosed different meanings of death, varieties of death anxiety, and hundreds of factors extracted from the uni- and multi-dimensional death anxiety scales. However, there have been no empirical studies to elucidate the reasons for death fear. The Reasons for Death Fear Scale (RDFS) was constructed and validated. It consists of 18 brief items, with good reliabilities ( > .8). Four factors of the RDFS were labeled Fear of Pain and Punishment, Fear of Losing Worldly Involvements, Religious Transgressions and Failures, and Parting from Loved Ones. A high-loaded factor was extracted in which the RDFS's loading was .45, while the loadings of the scales of death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession ranged between .8 and .9. Of interest is that the correlation between the RDFS and death anxiety was higher than that with general anxiety. No gender-differences were detected with college students. It is important to note that the findings of this study were only researched through Arabic and mainly Muslim college students. The generalizability of the present results to other populations would seem to merit further investigation.