Effects of Dependents and Own Sex on Planning for and Thinking about One's Death

Abstract

We investigated whether an extended sense of self based on having dependents or being socialized into an emotional caretaker (woman's) role would lead to planning for and thinking about one's dying and death more frequently and with less denial. 169 young adult men and women anonymously answered the denial questionnaire of Westman, Canter, and Boitos, reported whether they had dependents, wills, arranged for disposition of their bodies, and indicated how frequently they thought about their own death and what led them to think or not think about it. As hypothesized, young adults with dependents and women regardless of whether they had dependents were more likely to have wills and have arranged for disposition of their bodies. However, contrary to expectation, they were not less likely to deny their own dying. Having dependents or being female correlated for young adults with concrete behaviors concerning, but not with a corresponding change in attitude toward, their own dying or death. The more frequent reasons for their thinking or not thinking about death also are reported.