Attitude change and death education: A consideration of goals

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Abstract
The goals of death anxiety reduction and the creation of adaptive, positive, or favorable attitudes toward death in death education courses, as reflected by evaluation procedures, are critically examined. It is argued that the emphasis on simple quantitative measures of course impact may reflect unexamined assumptions about the “proper” attitudes toward death and relatively little concern with the symbolic meanings of different attitudes or with the process of relating to one's experience of death. Using Lifton's concept of the psycho formative process, the possible relations between attitudes and psychological experience are discussed, and it is suggested that death education courses and evaluations be oriented toward increasing the symbolic engagement with the experience of death rather than toward simple fear reduction or the creation of so-called favorable attitudes.