Abstract
Although death is the inevitable end of life, historical, sociological, and psychological analyses converge to demonstrate that human beings struggle to integrate it as a personal reality. In this article we attempt to bring to bear recent theoretical work on the linkage between our conceptions of death, and our difficulty adjusting to it as a species, by first surveying historical and philosophic perspectives on the meaning of death, and then sampling some of the broad field of psychological research on death attitudes in a variety of cultures and subcultures. Finally, we advance an argument that a fuller understanding of death as a phenomenon could mitigate the pervasive contemporary tendency toward its denial, and promote better adjustment to this ultimate reality, on both personal and societal levels.
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