To the Question of Attitude to Death of Middle-Aged People During the War in Ukraine

Abstract

A person's attitude to death is influenced by the critical situations he encounters in his life. The war, which began in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022, made people's feelings about death relevant, because death has become everyday reality in the lives of Ukrainians. The purpose of the study is to determine the peculiarities of middle-aged people attitude to the phenomenon of death during the war in Ukraine. A sample of subjects (N=76) who previously participated in our research in 2019 and 2020 during the coronavirus infection. The age of the subjects varies as follows: Me=44.00; min=35.00; max=55.00. Research methods: the "Attitude to Death" method (I.Yu. Kulagina, L.V. Senkevich), the "Attitude to Death Scale" method by D.V. Hardt, Metaphor of Personal Death technique – the Revised Death Fantasy Scale (RDFS) J. McLennan. It was determined that the attitude towards death in people of the studied middle-aged group during the war is ambivalent with a certain deviation towards the positive. The studied group is characterized by an average level of stress resistance, which is associated with thoughts about death. The choice of metaphors about death is determined by the degree of attitude positivity towards death: a pessimistic attitude towards death is associated with negative thoughts about death, fixation on its external side, avoidance of contact with death. Lack of seeing a positive perspective in death leads to pessimism and negative thoughts. An optimistic attitude towards death is associated with the rare occurrence of negative thoughts about own death, perception of death as a necessary aspect of being, openness to contact with death. Significant differences were found between believers and atheists on the indicator of positive thoughts about their own death: believers showed a high level of acceptance of death. Significant differences in attitudes toward death between men and women were also identified: men have a more positive and "black" humor to thoughts about death.

Keywords

• attitude to death
• war
• middle-aged group
• metaphors of death