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Abstract

The World Wide Web is emerging as the new site for mourners. Many bereaved persons are creating memorial Web sites for deceased loved ones, providing text-based representations of what they have lost with frequent reference to the nature of their grief. The primary purpose of this study was to measure elements of attachment style and grief as shown by the adult daughters who had placed memorials on the Internet for their deceased mothers. Participants self-selected and were solicited and completed a questionnaire online. In addition, the 24 available Web sites were content coded for textual themes and presentational styles. Fifty-nine memorial authors responded to measures of attachment style, grief, and characteristics of the memorial they created. Results revealed a lower frequency of secure attachment styles than would be expected and higher levels of grief. Prominent among the themes expressed in these memorials were missing the deceased, narratives and letters to the deceased, comments about the deceased watching over the bereft, and other references to the self. Although smaller numbers precluded statistical analyses, several evocative attachment style differences in the use of these themes were suggested. These findings contribute to the understanding of the complex relationship between adult daughters and their deceased mothers and the potential role of attachment in the ways in which such relationships are characterized and memorialized.

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Memorializing on the World Wide Web: Patterns of Grief and Attachment in Adult Daughters of Deceased Mothers

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