Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

4-25-2025

Keywords

aging, death anxiety, denial of death, existential anxiety, immortality, mortality awareness

Disciplines

Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Just as humans are sentient creatures, aware of their beingness in this world, they are also cognizant of their eventual and inevitable death. With this knowledge comes the natural dread and anxiety associated with being aware that on any given day one will cease to exist. Indeed, one of the fundamental existential conflicts, or causes for existential angst, is the tension caused when an individual is aware of their inevitable death while also yearning for their continued life. Just as anxiety is a natural emotion, so too, is the anxiety surrounding death and its associated existential conflict.  In this context, death anxiety involves the angst experienced when considering one’s own eventual death, or the deaths of individuals close to us, and not the emotions experienced when faced with direct threats to one’s life. Thus, a person suffering from a terminal illness or an adult child worrying about their parents’ health may struggle with death anxiety, but a person whose life is in clear and immediate danger (e.g., being involved in a car crash) does not fall within this scope.  Despite understanding from an intellectual perspective that death is unavoidable, humans shape their lives in patterns which perpetuate the denial of death through attempts to prolong their lives. Then in turn, individuals expend energy towards achieving various forms of immortality in attempts to ameliorate the anxiety associated with this existential given of death. Looking around our everyday environments, one can see such attempts to deny or delay death such as advertisements for beauty products which counteract the appearance of aging or even monuments erected to ensure that various individuals are not forgotten.

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