Death – The Development Of A Concept Of Death

Death

The Development Of A Concept Of Death

When one looks và listens carefully, one learns that children are very interested và curious about death. It is one of their first intellectual puzzles that is played out whenever they see a chết bug on the windshield ; when they engage in the game of ” here ” và ” not here ” in peekaboo ; or when they shoot a target chết with the shotgun blast of their finger. Yet, a mature understanding of death, involving a number of components, is accomplished only along with an overall conceptual development about how things in the world work. Most adults và older children understand that death is universal & inevitable ; all living things die. Death is irreversible ( the chết do not come back ), và the body date calculator age
àn thân becomes nonfunctional ( all functions và activities associated with the physical being cease ). The causes of death, ranging from the deterioration of old age, illness, accidents, và homicides, to perhaps extreme psychological distress, are also fairly well known. In contemporary Western societies, it is rare to find widespread belief that magic, bad thoughts, or evil spirits are the sources of death. Finally, a foundation of most Western ( and Eastern ) belief systems is that some intangible dimension of persons — their soul or spirit — continues beyond the death of their physical bodies, a concept known as noncorporeal continuation .

A classic 1948 study by Maria Nagy of almost 400 Hungarian children aged three to ten revealed that arriving at a mature concept of death requires development through three stages. ” Auntie Death, ” as Nagy was called, learned through interviews & pictures drawn by the children that between the ages of three và five years ( Stage một ), children believed that death involved a continuation of life, but at a reduced cấp độ of activity và experiences. The chết do not do much, their condition resembles sleep, & they can return to the world of the living. Of greatest concern to the youngest children was the fear of separation, not necessarily the fear of dying or being chết. During Stage 2, identified by Nagy as from five to nine years of age, children progressed to an understanding that death is final & irreversible. Death takes on concrete imagery & a personality, in the guise of skeletons, or the ” boogeyman. ” Such personification leads to another interesting belief of this period : Death can be evaded, if you can only outsmart or outrun that nasty boogeyman ! Thus, universality in death is a concept yet to be achieved. Final, the achievements of Stage ba ( age nine và older ) reflected the mature components of death .

Although this research was done in the mid-twentieth century, Nagy’s findings continue to be applicable. Subsequent research has suggested that children arrive at a mature concept of death at an earlier age than suggested by Nagy, that children do not personify death to the extent that Nagy found, & that modern công nghệ has found its way into their descriptions ( death is lượt thích a hard drive crash ). Furthermore, there is a strong connection between death concepts & overall cognitive development, so sánh that children’s understanding of what causes death changes from magical ( ” I wished he was chết và now he is ” ), naive ( ” You die from eating a dirty bug ” ), và moral ( ” My Daddy died because I was a bad child ” ) to a more scientific, rational approach ( ” You die when your body toàn thân wears out or when you get an incurable disease ” ). Researchers have also learned that it is too simplistic to view just age as the determining factor with regard to death concepts. Children who have experienced a parent’s death, who are dying themselves, or who have witnessed violent, traumatic death will perceive death in an adultlike manner at much earlier ages than children who have not had such experiences .

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