title: Attitudes toward dying and death: a comparison of recreational groups among older men.
abstract: Previous research reports examining the relationship between attitudes toward dying, death, and involvement in death-related occupations have provided mixed findings as no clear pattern has been identified. Examination of the relationship between attitudes toward dying, death, and recreational activity has not received much attention. The current study examined attitudes toward dying and death of older men categorized into four groups defined by recreational activities. The groups included skydivers (high death risk), nursing home residents (high death exposure), volunteer firefighters (high death risk and high death exposure), and a control group. The analyses found that skydivers reported the least fear of death, while nursing home residents reported the highest level. In addition, skydivers and firefighters had higher death acceptance scores than nursing home residents and the control group for the confrontation dimension, whereas skydivers had higher death acceptance scores than all groups, and firefighters were more accepting of death than nursing home residents for the integration dimension.
authors.affiliation: Shippensburg University, Department of Psychology-FSC 119, Pennsylvania 17257, USA. jdgrif@ship.edu
authors.forename: James D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Griffith
authors.affiliation: Shippensburg University, Department of Psychology-FSC 119, Pennsylvania 17257, USA.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Toms
authors.affiliation: Shippensburg University, Department of Psychology-FSC 119, Pennsylvania 17257, USA.
authors.forename: Joey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Reese
authors.affiliation: Shippensburg University, Department of Psychology-FSC 119, Pennsylvania 17257, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hamel
authors.affiliation: Shippensburg University, Department of Psychology-FSC 119, Pennsylvania 17257, USA.
authors.forename: Lucy L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Texas Women's University, USA.
authors.forename: Christian L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Hart
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001359:Aviation; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D061388:Firefighters / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009735:Nursing Homes; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D011998:Recreation / Q000523:psychology*; D012309:Risk-Taking