El comercio exterior agroalimentario

The overwhelming majority of research suggests that advancing age does not increase older people’s personal death anxiety. Instead, older adults usually see death as a natural part of life and have few worries regarding their impending death. How do older people experience low personal death anxiety when death is no longer a distal but an inexorable fact of life? I propose that religion is often called upon to cope with personal death anxiety among older adults for two reasons: (a) religion is

interconnected with old age; and (b) religion serves as a basis for a person’s global meaning system that aims to provide a meaningful and integrally-linked journey from the beginning to the negation of existence.

1.2.5.1. Interconnections between Religion and Old Age

Historically speaking, religion has been a dominating factor in structuring the passage of life from one stage to the next – birth, adolescence, marriage, and most of all death – and the ritualistic celebrations of the key moments in the life course (Davie &

Vincent, 1998). Such religious rites of passage enable its members to acknowledge difficult life transitions rather than deny their reality (Pargament, Ano, & Wachholtz, 2005).

The interconnection between religion and old age is further supported by studies on developmental changes in religiosity, which generally found that as people grew older and approached death, they became more religious. For example, belief in God

increases with age (Davie & Vincent, 1998). Intrinsic religious commitment is stronger in older adults aged over 55 than youths (Watson, Howard, Hood, & Morris, 1988). Self- rated religiosity increased somewhat over four years among people aged over 60 (Markides, 1983).

However, the age difference in various indices of religiosity could be due to different cohorts’ upbringing experience (cf. Davie & Vincent, 1998). Pre-war generations tended to grow up under the influence of membership of a wide range of church

congregations while post-modernity undermines the role of a traditional religious life course by increasing variety in life styles.

Because of their established formal link with churches, religion remains an important source of support in the midst of suffering, loss and death for many older people (Blazer & Palmore, 1976; McFadden, 1996). For example, religious faith was among one of the typical strategies people in their late 70s and early 80s used as a defence

against death anxiety (Cicirelli, 2003). In addition, faith in God was cited by a number of older adults as a facilitating factor for their recovery from crises (Caplan, Haslett, Burleson, 2005). Moreover, religion became more prevalent in meaning-making among elderly people after the death of a partner (Golsworthy & Coyle, 1999) or the diagnosis of a terminal illness (Ardelt, Ai, & Eichenberger, 2008). Manfredi and Pickett (1987) also found that prayer was the most frequently used strategy to cope with stress and conflict among elderly people.

1.2.5.2. Religion as Part of a Global Meaning System

‘Human beings are hungry for significance’ (Cottingham, 2003, p. 32), in particular, the meaning of existence. Because ‘no finite being can conquer its finitude’ (Tillich, 1964, p. 194), awareness of death gives rises to a sense of loss of control,

predictability, or comprehensibility of the world. Hence, search for meaning often occurs in response to impending death (Marrone, 1999) and/or normal ageing process (Moremen, 2004-2005). Meaning searching involves questioning the justness and goodness of the world. It also involves examination of life meaning and the place of oneself in the universe (Marrone, 1999). Religion is often mentioned when discussing meaning of suffering, life and death. This is because, as a part of a person’s global meaning system, religion functions to inform his/her global beliefs, global goals and subjective sense of meaningfulness (Park, 2005a) to cope with existential issues.

Global beliefs are general beliefs about the nature of the world that help people interpret their everyday life experiences (Park, 2005a; 2005b). ‘Every [religious] tradition depicts a meaningful world and encourages its members to find and live by this meaning’ (Pargament, 1997, p. 48). Specifically, religion provides fair, predictable, controllable and safe worldviews (Park, 2005b) to understand the impermanence of life so as to restore existential meaning that has been threatened by death. For example, religion offers more benign or acceptable causal attributions to account for why a given life event occurred and illuminates the positive aspects that may follow from stressful situations (Park, 2005a). Such an approach could conserve the meaning of personal striving by providing insights into instances where a seeming wrong decision leads to the right decision after all.

Global goals are desirable outcomes that people strive to achieve or maintain (Park, 2005a; 2005b). Religion outlines a ‘framework for determining what is right and good and to be sought after, and for determining what is wrong and bad and to be avoided’ (Park, 2005a, p. 301). If one follows such religious code of practice, one is believed to reach a sacred destination. For example, believers may see their righteous action as

oriented toward a desirable afterlife. If heaven is not a reward for their devotion to their faith, then efforts to persevere in their religious commitment despite obstacles and suffering on Earth become meaningless in themselves (Kubler-Ross, 1969).

Subjective sense of meaningfulness refers to feelings of having a purpose in life (Park, 2005a; 2005b). Most religions are able to provide meaning by explaining the human nature, the origin of existence, and the inevitable cessation of life (Ardelt & Koenig, 2006). “Religious and spiritual beliefs represent one way in which human beings create a structure of meaning that gives a sense of order and purpose to their existence and to death” (Golsworthy & Coyle, 1999, p. 22). Specifically, religion helps people restore a sense of meaning and continuity of existence in three ways: (a) re-construction of past conflicts, (b) integration and appreciation of one’s social responsibility and life experiences, and (c) affirmation of a future life after death. It is this religious focus on making sense of our past, present and future that makes religion more effective than mundane meaning systems in approaching death.

Given that religion is an important meaning system that helps people comprehend the problems of existence, there is a need to investigate the efficacy of religion’s pervasive personal death anxiety buffering power. Hence, the purpose of this dissertation is to examine the efficacy of the aforementioned three pathways by which religion exerts its influence on personal death anxiety in later life among religious older adults.