Abstract

The problem. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between ontological death anxiety, neuroticism and belief in afterlife in adolescent development. Parallel conditions between the adolescent developmental crisis of identity and the confrontation of ontological death were explored. It was predicted that avoidance of ontological death anxiety is a precursor for the manifestation of adolescent neurosis. It was further predicted that belief in afterlife will not reduce ontological death anxiety. ;Method. The design for the study was correlational and factorial. Three hundred forty-nine adolescents, age 15-18, completed a demographic questionnaire, the Avoidance of Ontological Confrontation of Death Scale, the Belief in Afterlife Scale and the 16 Personality Factor Scale. ;Results. Pearson's Product Moment Correlation indicated that there was a positive relationship between avoidance/confrontation of death and neuroticism and no relationship between avoidance/confrontation of death and belief in afterlife. These results were as predicted. The results further indicated a negative relationship between belief in afterlife and neuroticism. This finding was not predicted. Avoidance/confrontation of death and belief in afterlife had significant main effects on neuroticism with a nonsignificant interaction effect. As predicted, a two-way analysis of variance revealed that avoidance/confrontation of death accounted for fifteen percent of the variance in neuroticism. A median split was utilized to bifurcate each of the independent variables and construct a cell means matrix for neuroticism. As hypothesized, subjects who both avoid awareness of ontological death anxiety and maintain high belief in afterlife possess higher levels of neuroticism than do any other group