Lit review 3

Situation:

Superstitions, intolerance of uncertainty and escape-avoidance coping were found to be predictors of death anxiety.

With the collectivist culture, Chinese may try to consider others’ feelings and avoid arousing negative emotions. it seems Chinese who seldom talk about death may repress and displace their death related thoughts in other situations, such as superstitions or death beliefs. Considered death as a sensitive topic among Chinese, research on death anxiety is understudied in Chinese society.

Superstitious beliefs are prevalent in Chinese Culture. As one walks along the streets in Hong Kong, it is not difficult to find newspaper booths, with piles of books on Chinese zodiac for the 12 animal signs telling your luck, fortunes, love or career prospect in the year. As one goes inside  domestic or commercial buildings, one could hardly find lifts with buttons for 4th floor, and floors ending with a ‘4’ which pronounce the same as the word ‘death’ or ‘die’.

Many Chinese superstitious beliefs are related to death , which is being considered an unhappy and unfortunate event.

 Corsni defines superstition as a “belief or practice based on the operation of supernatural or magical forces, such as charms, omens or exorcism” or ant “unscientific belief accepted without question, groundless or unfounded notion”. In the world that pursues scientific findings, superstitions being considered as irrational and unfounded should be incompatible in developed countries that are technologically and economically advanced. However, superstitions seem to sustain in different cultures and planted in minds of people across all socioeconomic status and education levels.

 Some past research indicated superstitions were most prevalent in societies and careers that posed hazards or high risks to peoples lives, such as hunters, miners, fishermen, suggesting that the function of superstition was to help people cope with uncertainty and reduce threat  or uncertainty induced anxiety. On the other hand, some studies found that superstition was positively correlated with anxiety level among adolescence and also obsessive compulsive disorders.

Many of the Chinese superstitions are beliefs trying to avoid inauspicious events or promote auspicious events. In particular , many of them are related to traditional Chinese death beliefs, such as visiting others homes in early bereavement would bring bad luck to others; and discussing death in front of dying persons would speed up their deaths.

TMT suggests there is a dual-component anxiety buffer for people to deal with potential terror associated with death. One component is to share cultural beliefs to make sense of the universe. The other component is self-esteem, which is the perception of oneself in behaving according to the cultural standards that rendered them eligible for safety in this life and afterlife (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997). In the salience of death or potential terror, individual would share the cultural death beliefs and behave accordingly trying to keep oneself or others safe. Hence, the present author would expect the more traditional death beliefs an individual holds, the higher death anxiety one has.

Past research has shown that the more people attributing outcomes to incontrollable forces, the more superstitious behaviors they would exhibit (Burger & Lynn, 2005, Felson & Gmelch, 1979; Singer & Benassi, 1981; Vyse, 1997). Also, in the salience of uncertainty, superstitions may be used to complement decision making in a way to provide additional information and reduce anxiety induced by uncertainty (Tsang, 2004). If the assertion is true, then it would be logical to expect that person with high intolerance of uncertainty would be more vulnerable to superstitions beliefs. Death, without question, is a topic that is full of uncertainty and nobody can be certain when, and how one would die, and what would happen after death. Past research has shown that uncertainty is associated with threat of loss of one‟s life (Viney, 1984-1985; Thorson, Powell, & Samuel, 1998). Hence, the present author would expect that people who are with high intolerance of uncertainty would be associated with higher death anxiety, and adopting more superstitious belief to reduce the uncertainty-induced anxiety.

Coping strategy. Coping strategies, or ways of coping, are often classified into two main categories (Chang, 1998; Folkman & Lazarus, 1985; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988). They are problem-focused coping, which involves activities that focus on directly changing elements of the stressful situation to remove the source of stress; and emotion-focused coping, which involves activities that focus on modifying one‟s internal or emotional reactions resulting from stressful situation to alleviate emotional distress. The problem-focused coping is also referred to as planful problem solving whereas emotion-focused coping as escape-avoidance coping.

The findings of present study suggest that the more cultural death beliefs one has, the more superstitious one might be which are supported by TMT in conjunction with OPT. In the presence of terror or mortality salience, an individual would share the cultural beliefs to seek for security. However, sheltering under the cultural death beliefs may lead the individual becoming more superstitious. Once an individual adopts superstitious beliefs trying to reduce the inner anxiety, one may get indulged in the superstitions and eventually become more superstitious and with even higher death anxiety.

Relevance:

Death does not restrict to the elderly, but also to children and adults that every age group needs to face death of one’s own or others one day. It would be of practical use in educating children and teenagers with a proper view of death, superstitions and myths. In addition, being able to identify the role of superstitions and coping with death anxiety would have clinical implications in helping patients cope with death anxiety at the end of their life especially for those diagnosed with incurable or chronic diseases, and those who need to face the dying of their beloved and in bereavement. furthermore, doctors, nurses, caregivers in elderly homes need to face death and dying patients from time to time that the knowledge gap would provide implications for the handling of superstitious beliefs and death anxiety.

Knowing the concerns and fears of death people possess could provide practical implications to death education, bereavement support and end of life care directives in society.

Following superstitions might help reduce the anxiety emotion induced from threats and uncertainties by giving a sense of relieved emotion. However the anxiety still sustains and even might be strengthened with repeated practice of superstitious beliefs. Applying this theory in superstitious and death anxiety, we would expect superstitions to be positively correlated with death anxiety. If the assertion is true, it would suggest government bodies, health organizations and public to have a serious thought and understanding of the role of superstitions and myths on mental health.


Individual who adopts escape-avoidance coping to escape from stressful situations and remove stressors would likely exhibit more fears to death. This is consistent with earlier research finding that emotion-focused coping was related to higher anxiety (Cohen et al., 2008). They were also found to have higher superstitions, which is consistent with the present research‟s findings that death anxiety is correlated with superstitions. Although problem solving may not help reduce death anxiety, escaping from stressful situations would be a worse choice that might lead to even higher death anxiety. Trying to escape and not facing death, individual might treat death as a taboo topic and eventually fall into the vicious cycle.

Fearing that the discussion of death would lead to faster death of their beloved, many Chinese families avoid the discussion and even stop the dying person from talking further on their wish on funeral arrangement. The more the patients and families avoid facing and discussing issues on death, the more fears on death and negative emotions they would have.

The findings also provide some insights on the present study‟s findings on religiosity. With more chance to talk about death issues in religious settings, individual with religion has more exposure and understanding on death that may help reduce the death anxiety. This suggests facing and discussing death issues openly might help reduce one‟s death anxiety.

In particular, superstitions play a critical role in understanding death anxiety. Superstitions permeated into families of everyday life with media spreading the beliefs through newspapers, commercials, magazines, drama and even in information channels. Originally, people might want to try control their fates or avoiding disasters by manipulating the environment, like Feng Shui or even follow some irrational acts. However, it seems eventually, people might get into the dilemma that they become under the control of superstitions. Getting indulged in superstitions is like taking drugs, that their minds could never set free from the thoughts and even got more worries and higher anxiety. Also, many street deceptions crimes in Hong Kong are preying on people‟s superstitions, caring for health and welfare of their family members (HKSAR v. Chan Kam Po, 2002; HKSAR v. Zheng Youwen Et. Al., 2009). Not only they could not manage their fates through superstitions, they are more likely to fell into traps of deceptions.

Roles of family and the government in such an issue :

In fact, many superstitious beliefs could be broken just with little courage. To help reduce death anxiety, general public should face death positively and be more open to discussion on death with families and friends, such as their views on death, death arrangements, how their funerals to be conducted, and their wills. Government or hospice organisations could arrange field trips to funeral parlour or cemetery, for better understanding and preparation, and encourage open discussions on death. People who make this little step would likely breakthrough from the superstitions and reduce the death anxiety.

Education and public policies advocating directives on non-superstitions may be vital to promote healthy cognitions on death beliefs, and with proper view on superstition or myths to general public with all ages.

Some traditional Chinese death beliefs are encouraging people to adopt escape-avoidance coping in bereavement, such as parents should not attend their children's funerals, which deprived parents last chance to say goodbye to their children and discouraged themselves to express their sad emotions in public and obtain social support. Death education should be reviewed and promote the correct moral values to public; and encourage social support and apathy with those in bereavement. Death education on adults, teachers are particularly important as they would pass their beliefs to the next generation and are role models for the younger ones. Government should also promote death education programs in elderly centres, end-of-life care and bereavement support to counteract the superstitious beliefs patients and families possess, such as having cancers or terminal illnesses as punishment and annihilation in death.

Sources : Wong, S. H. (2012). Does superstition help? A study of the role of superstitions and death beliefs on death anxiety amongst Chinese undergraduates in Hong Kong. Omega, 65(1), 55-70.