A study of the attitude toward death of adolescents with normative and deviant behavior

This article presents the results of a study of attitude toward death adolescents with normative and deviant behaviors. The actuality of this study is determined by several factors: the crisis of modern society, the age and psychological characteristics of adolescence, the lack of such empirical studies. The study sample consisted of 88 middle adolescents aged 14 to 16. Through theoretical analysis we identified 7 variants of the attitude to death and developed a method called of “Statements about death” for their identification. We found that for most adolescents the topic of death is relevant (medium and high levels of anxiety about death that are associated with the factor of the time passed). Significant differences were not revealed between groups in the emotional attitude to death. Adolescents reject death on an emotional level. The task of thematic apperception test was carried out to explore the meaningful context of their attitude toward death. There were 9 topics highlighted. In the stories of both groups a common topic of “Loss / bereavement” frequently appears; nevertheless normative adolescents experience that much more often. While among deviant adolescents a topic of “mystification / ritualization” is much more common; among normative adolescents the topics of “Finding meaning” and “Reflections” are similar. Adolescents in both groups equally found attitude toward death according to the variants of “Acceptance of death” (“death as a natural process”) and “Death as a transition to another state.” Knowledge about differences in attitude toward death will help to improve the quality of psychological support both groups of adolescents during the development of their identity, self-concept and internal world, to contribute to the effective prevention of self-destructive and suicidal behaviors.