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The Impact of Traumatic Symptomology and Social Support on the Effective Management of Death Anxiety

Abstract Details

2018, Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, College of Sciences and Health Professions.
Terror management theory (TMT) posits that people function effectively in the world, in part, by relying on social anxiety-buffer systems to protect against death awareness; however, a new extension called anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT), posits that traumatic experiences can overwhelm those buffers, leaving people vulnerable to death anxiety and at increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. To test these hypotheses, participants with low and high posttraumatic stress symptoms were identified and recruited using a general population pre-screen, prompted to engage in a relationship threat priming task (vs. control topic), and then asked to complete a standard measure of death anxiety. The present research found that: 1) when posttraumatic stress symptoms were low, death anxiety was low in a control condition but increased following a threat to social relationships (a known death-anxiety buffer); but, 2) when posttraumatic stress symptoms were high, death anxiety was high in both the social threat and control condition, indicating overwhelmed/disrupted normative buffering. The present research could potentially bear new insights for the understanding of posttraumatic stress, how relate to others, to the world around them, and to their own mortality, and could provide some hints toward practical implications for improving the treatment of PTSD.
Kenneth Vail, III, PhD (Advisor)
Robert Hurley, PhD (Committee Member)
Eric Allard, PhD (Committee Member)
Ilya Yaroslavsky, PhD (Committee Member)
51 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Courtney, E. P. (2018). The Impact of Traumatic Symptomology and Social Support on the Effective Management of Death Anxiety [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu152820655318897

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Courtney, Emily. The Impact of Traumatic Symptomology and Social Support on the Effective Management of Death Anxiety. 2018. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu152820655318897.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Courtney, Emily. "The Impact of Traumatic Symptomology and Social Support on the Effective Management of Death Anxiety." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu152820655318897

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)