Abstract

This project examined how people deal with their own mortality. On the basis of a constructivist theoretical formulation, two general patterns with regard to how people construe the meaning of death were posited. These were named existential mobilization and paralysis. These patterns were influenced by Kelly's theory of personal constructs, in which he cites death as the prototypical example of the threatening event. ;Because of the salience of death fear in people with panic disorder, they were compared to groups of medically-ill and healthy people, using a combination of self-report measures. These included the Threat Index, the Life Regard Index, the Coping Strategies Scales, the Seeking of Noetic Goals Test, and the Rappaport Time Line. To allow more detailed analysis of individuals' responses to the reality that life is finite, half of the participants were exposed to a death awareness induction procedure. ;People with panic disorder were found to exhibit characteristics associated with a pattern of existential paralysis: they felt less fulfilled in life, reported fewer goals and a lack of achievement of goals, and they experienced a significant discrepancy between who they are and who they would like to be. In contrast to the panic sufferers, both those in the employee and medically-ill groups reported having a framework of goals around which to structure their lives, a sense of fulfillment in life and consequent lack of motivation to search for further meaning, and an ability to anticipate the future. Death contemplation resulted in both those in the healthy and panic group seeing life as foreshortened, with an over-emphasis on present events. The strongest findings suggest that people with panic disorder see their life and impending mortality in a distinctive way. In addition, it appears that raising death awareness changes people's perceptions to some extent. Finally, this study suggests that the mobilization/paralysis model of construing death can contribute to scientific understanding in this area.