Effects of Exposure to Death and Dying on Belief Systems
Kelly A. Curtis
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Everyone is going to die. With this amount of exposure to death and dying (ED&D), it raises the question of how this type of exposure affects individuals, particularly in regard to belief systems about death, the afterlife, the paranormal, and religiosity. While there has been some exploration into the psychological effects ED&D has on individuals, there is not a measure that adequately analyzes and standardizes ED&D, greatly narrowing the breadth of research being conducted in this area.
Existing measures that examine ED&D have limitations. Some focus on exposure in the subjects’ personal lives but not the professional sphere. Measures such as the Occupational Death Exposure scale only focus on exposure with the deceased but not the process of dying, whereas most others consider exposure to the dying process but not the deceased. Some, such as the Frequency of Exposure to Death Questionnaire, have a restricted number of items in the measure, limiting the assessment of construct breadth and resulting in unidimensional scales. Other research has explored the topic with no standardized measure at all, proceeding with assumptions that all levels of ED&D are equal or assuming that everyone in a certain profession or workplace has similar ED&D. Because of these variants and deficiencies in measures, the need for a comprehensive, standardized measure is vital to be able to thoroughly examine how this type of exposure affects an individual’s belief systems, whether practical or parapsychological, as well as to substantiate some of the preliminary findings from previous research in this area.
Even though everyone experiences ED&D in their lifetimes, some, such as first responders, hospice workers, military, morticians, etc., have much higher exposure to ED&D. It is currently unclear what effects ED&D has in formulating and upholding one’s belief systems relating to death. Having a better understanding of the effects that ED&D has on those experiencing these exposures at high levels, whether those exposures are “ordinary” or contain a paranormal component, can inform mental health services for these individuals while providing a better understanding of the ways this exposure molds belief systems, paranormal belief, belief in the afterlife, and religiosity.
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Kelly A. Curtis is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University under the supervision of Dr. Neil Dagnall. Her background in paranormal investigation spans over 25 years, influencing her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Iowa and her Masters education in Mental Health. Kelly has presented her research at a Health and Education Conference in June 2022, as well as a conference focused on Shaping the Future of Research in March 2022. She has been published in the Parapsychological Association’s bulletin, Mindfield, in November 2022.
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Program chaired by Jacob W. Glazier. Download the Abstracts at https://parapsych.org/uploaded_files/pdfs/00/00/00/01/26/2023_pa_abstracts_of_presented_papers.pdf
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Published on January 19, 2025
