A total of 399 individuals completed a lethal behaviors scale and a measure of death anxiety, which were found to have no significant correlation. Predictors of lethalness included doing dangerous things for the fun of it and having ever driven a motorcycle. The most lethal individuals were young, male, and less educated. (Author/ABL)

Operationalized Lifton's constructs of symbolic immortality and developed instrument to measure individual's needs for symbolic immortality in Lifton's five modes (biological, religious, nature, creative, experiential) in study which also examined age effects on needs for symbolic immortality and relation between sensation seeking and symbolic…

Suggests that death may be so personally relevant that its timing may not be random. Analysis of 1,961 deaths during a six-year period in Athens, Georgia, showed people tended to die at times when others would be near rather than during the night. (Author/JAC)

Explores bereavement of persons who have experienced death of a close friend. Used 12 open-ended interviews with and 23 essays by college students in first study and a mutual support group in the second study. Findings indicated parallel survivor-friend and family member bereavement patterns. (Author/ABL)

Discusses tribal differences in Native American suicidal behavior. Similarities among these studies are noted, including data sources, the concentration of suicide among the young, intratribal group heterogeneity with respect to suicide, suicide methods employed, and alcohol involvement. The implications of obtaining figures from official agencies…

Logit results show suddenness of death contributes to likelihood parent will feel anger while anticipatory socialization to death or recency of death decreases odds of feeling anger toward child. All variables decrease likelihood parents will feel desire to punish someone for death of child. (BF)

Subjective life expectancy, death anxiety, and health behavior were assessed in college students (n=36) with at least one parent who died prematurely of illness (PD group) and students (n=36) with both parents alive (PA group). PD group estimated their life expectancy to be shorter than the PA; subgroup of PD reported poorer diet. (Author/ABL)

In England and Wales, females are more prone to commit suicide than homicide. Homicidal offenders are more likely to victimize members of their own families and decidedly more prone to kill themselves. These tendencies are tentatively related to the possible development of a subculture of self-directed violence. (Author)

Administered two death anxiety measures and personality questionnaire to 161 undergraduates. Results revealed that death anxiety scores were significantly related to neuroticism and to Type A behavior patterns, such that high death anxiety was correlated with greater emotionality and more aggressiveness. Neuroticism, Type A behaviors,…

Implications for suicide prevention efforts are examined. It is concluded that psychiatric treatment of depression and restricting access to lethal methods for suicide are more useful tactics for suicide prevention programs in elderly, and crisis counseling from suicide prevention centers and educational programs are more useful in younger adults.…

Identified several different patterns of adaptation over first 18 months of bereavement represented by levels of subjective stress and depression in 131 widowed men and women. Anticipatory grief, concurrent stressors, social support, and spiritual support correlated with single significant function which discriminated between different courses of…