Death Anxiety, Depression and Anxiety: An Experimental Study

Conditions studied

Death Anxiety, Depression, Anxiety

About this study

The goal of this experimental study is to investigate the transdiagnostic role of death anxiety in depression and anxiety symptoms in participants from the general population. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Does the mortality salience task induce death anxiety? 2. Does the experimental group present an increase in depression and anxiety symptoms following the mortality salience task? The investigators will compare the experimental condition to a control condition to see if the death anxiety induction is responsible for the expected increase in depression and anxiety symptoms. The mortality salience prompt will be asking participants to elaborate on their thoughts and feelings surrounding death and dying, including what they think happens during death. The dental pain prompt will ask participants to do the same, only in regards to the thought of having dental pain. Experimental group: participants will undergo a pen-and-paper writing task where they will be asked to answer two questions: 1. "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you." 2. "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you physically as you die and once you are physically dead." Control group: 1. "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of dental pain arouses in you." 2. "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think happens to you physically as you experience dental pain and once you have physically experienced dental pain."

Interventions

• Behavioral: Mortality Salience Prompts — This intervention implies giving two prompts to participants, in a written format, while asking them to write out answers to the given prompts. The first prompt is: "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your death arouses in you." The second prompt is "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you physically as you die and once you are physically dead."
• Behavioral: Dental Pain Prompts — This intervention implies giving two prompts to participants, and requesting that participants write out their answers to these prompts. The first prompt is: "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of dental pain arouses in you." The second prompt is: "Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think happens to you physically as you experience dental pain and once you have physically experienced dental pain."

Primary outcomes

• Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale - Revised (CLFD-R) (Baseline (Day 1), After the experimental task (Day 14))

Eligibility information

Study locations

• Babes Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania