The prospect of death is often terrifying for many people. In fact, some become so preoccupied with their own mortality that they develop what is known as “death anxiety” or thanatophobia. It represents one of the greatest fears of the human being, the fear of dying and, in these thoughts, death is a terrible scenario.
However, for those who are really about to pass away, the experience of death seems to be much more positive than we might imagine, based on the conclusions of the study carried out by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) and collected by the journal Psychological Science.
The experts examined the last words of two groups of people: a first group of 25 terminally ill patients who were going to die of cancer or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and another group of prisoners on death row . They reviewed both his last words – in the case of the prisoners. as in the previous months of the rest of the patients.
“There is almost an unspoken assumption that death is something to be avoided at all costs,” says Kurt Gray, leader of the work.
However, instead of looking at language related to fear and anxiety, the researchers found that people facing death were surprisingly positive.
“Although such positivity seems strange in someone so close to death, our work shows that it is actually quite typical, ” clarifies Gray.
The abstract concept of death seems to be more terrifying than the reality of death itself , because as control subjects, the researchers had the participation of 50 healthy people and asked them to imagine that they had terminal cancer and that they had a blog where document your experience. They were asked to write a blog post.
In general, the blog posts of dying patients were much more positive than those of people who imagined the advent of death. Over time, the blog posts of those who saw their end nearing became even more positive.
The algorithms used in the study showed that the blog posts of terminally ill people used far more words that expressed positive emotions than negative ones (“happiness” and “love”, above all).
“I think when people imagine what it is like to die, they see it as very different from the life they know. But in reality, death is part of life , and you may not need to fear it as much as you can,” Gray explains.
In conclusion, the authors said the findings suggest that our expectations of the emotions surrounding death are not in line with reality. “Death is inevitable, but fear is not. These two studies reveal that the experience of dying is unexpectedly positive,” say the authors.
Referencia: Kurt Gray, Ph.D. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; James Maddux, Ph.D., Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, George Mason University, Fairfax, Va.; June 1, 2017, Psychological Science
