Psychological well-being: A comparative study of Thanatophobic people

Pages: 97-100
Mohd Amin Wani (Department of Psychology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh)

“A free man thinks of nothing less than of death: and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life” (Baruch Spinoza). Death is a natural phenomenon just as life. It is not to be afraid of and not to lose the Psychological balance. The fundamental objective of this paper was to ascertain the Psychological Well-being among Thanatophobic people. For this purpose, the sample was selected from the district Baramulla of Jammu and Kashmir (India) with the help of simple random sampling. In the initial, 300 participants (Adolescents: n=100), (Adults: n=100), and (Elderly: n=100) took part in the study, upon which the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (1986) was administered. In this way the highly death anxious people were identified and the sample was contracted to a total of 90 participants with an equal number of Adolescents (12-19 years, n= 30), Adults (25-35 years, n= 30), and Elderly (50-60 years, n= 30) upon which the PGI Well-being Scale designed by Verma, Moudgil, Kaur, Pal, Dubey, and Gupta (1986) was administered. The obtained scores were analyzed with the help of t-test. The results of the study revealed that there were significant differences between Adolescents and Elderly, between Adults and Elderly, and finally between Adolescents and Adults with regard to their Psychological Well-being. The t-values were found to be 47.851, 18.197, and 24.779 respectively. To conclude we may say that old age people maintained better Psychological Well-being despite their fear of death followed by Adults and the Adolescents showed poor Psychological Well-being in comparison to their Adult and Elderly counterpart.