Deck 1: Attitudes Toward Death: a Climate of Change

Question 1

Depictions of death in the mass media, in which the symbolic use of death contributes to an "irrational dread of dying and thus to a diminished vitality and self-direction in life" is referred to as

A) mean world syndrome.
B) media overload.
C) communication depression syndrome.
D) secondary trauma.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Substitutions of vague words or phrases for ones considered harsh are

A) euphemisms.
B) death porn.
C) the indicative voice.
D) linguistic deliberations.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Avoiding words like dead or dying, instead using phrases in which loved ones "pass away," the deceased is "laid to rest" and the corpse is "remains", is an example of

A) death porn.
B) euphemisms.
C) thanatos.
D) keenings.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Media experts say that the "reality violence" on TV news began with coverage of the

A) Kennedy assassination.
B) explosion of the space shuttle.
C) Vietnam War.
D) Los Angeles riots.

Question 5

According to George Gerbner, the "mean world syndrome" describes depictions of death in the mass media as embedded in a structure of violence that conveys

A) security and trust in the world.
B) an enhanced vitality and joy in life.
C) numbness and dismissal of death.
D) a heightened sense of danger.

Question 6

Brief standardized printed statements following the death of an average citizen are called

A) obituaries.
B) death notices.
C) thanatographs.
D) death dirges.

Question 7

In traditional Hawaiian culture, mele kanikau may have been carefully composed or spontaneous and used

A) at the signing of the will.
B) while sprinkling ashes in the Pacific.
C) during the funeral procession.
D) at the moment of death.

Question 8

The Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a musical symbol of death found in

A) Liszt's Totentanz.
B) Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol.
C) Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite.
D) Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture.

Question 9

In literature, the meaning of death is often explored as it relates to the individual as well as

A) the author.
B) technology.
C) society.
D) the sixth sense.

Question 10

In Gerbner's "mean world syndrome", the symbolic use of death contributes to
1) an irrational dread of dying.
2) diminished vitality.
3) diminished self-direction in life.
4) an increased hoarding of weapons.

A) 1, 2, and 4
B) 2, 3, and 4
C) 1, 3, and 4
D) 1, 2, and 3

Question 11

What is the form of speech acknowledging the reality of death while distancing us from the dead, for example, "He was fond of music"?

A) Empathic voice
B) Emphatic voice
C) Subjunctive voice
D) Indicative voice

Question 12

Snuffed, ate it, wasted, and croaked are examples of

A) death talk.
B) laments.
C) American language dirges.
D) monolithic variables.

Question 13

All of the following are musical expressions associated with death EXCEPT

A) lament.
B) keening.
C) dirge.
D) hautsang.

Question 14

Themes of loss and death are heard in

A) classical music.
B) American blues music.
C) laments.
D) all of the above.

Question 15

Thanatos, from Greek mythology, is generally understood as a response to the

A) invention of life and death.
B) reincarnation of deities.
C) personification of death.
D) God of the afterlife.

Question 16

Deaths of the famous are likely to be announced on the newspaper's front page as well as via feature-length

A) death notices.
B) narcocorridos.
C) elegies.
D) obituaries.

Question 17

What do some commentators call the new "porn star" of popular culture?

A) The TV medical examiner
B) Crisis text 'hot' lines
C) The corpse
D) Managed death

Question 18

A feature length story on the death of someone famous is a/an

A) mediamac.
B) obituary.
C) lossography.
D) journalist's life review.

Question 19

After someone dies, conversations about that person move from present to past tense. This form of speech is called the

A) death narrative.
B) zone of possibility.
C) subjunctive voice.
D) indicative voice.

Question 20

Which of the following is NOT a musical expression associated with death?

A) Elegy
B) Requiem
C) Veil tale
D) Keening

Question 21

Research about death anxiety indicates that it tends to be higher among

A) males than females.
B) older people than middle-aged adults.
C) blacks than whites.
D) religious people than those who do not characterize themselves as religious.

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT an example of Holocaust literature?

A) Warsaw Diary by Chaim Kaplan
B) Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
C) Walking Skeleton by Richard Shaw
D) Night by Elie Wiesel

Question 23

What is an example of a homemade condolence?

A) Comfort quilts
B) Colored headstones
C) Cookies sent from the funeral home
D) Obituaries written by friends

Question 24

According to Kastenbaum, what is defined as "the study of life with death left in"?

A) Clinical ethics
B) Anthropology
C) Thanatology
D) Death anxiety

Question 25

The first formal course in death education at an American university was held at

A) University of Miami after the Cuban missile crisis.
B) University of Minnesota in 1963.
C) Harvard University School of Medicine in 1960.
D) University of Chicago in conjunction with the Association for Death Education and Counseling.

Question 26

Which of the following is NOT a way in which humor functions relative to death?

A) Raises consciousness
B) Encourages togetherness
C) Discourages empathy
D) Defuses anxiety

Question 27

Suse Lowenstein's work Dark Elegy functions as a reminder that

A) death is a dark figure.
B) life is fragile and survivors have to live with the loss.
C) classical and Christian symbols of death can be combined.
D) black is the color lining a casket.

Question 28

In 1963, the University of Minnesota

A) held the first formal course in death education.
B) was the site of an on-campus shooting covered by TV reporters for the first time.
C) published articles about President Kennedy's assassination in the college newspaper.
D) held the first-ever candlelight vigil for a slain professor.

Question 29

Hibakusha is a Japanese word meaning

A) a town dedicated to eastern spirits.
B) the oil of society.
C) explosion affected.
D) cultural lag.

Question 30

Which of the following is NOT an example of the dimension of sociological thanatology?

A) Response to disaster
B) Pain and symptom control
C) Disposal of the dead
D) Socialization of children

Question 31

Which of the following are considered dimensions of thanatology?
1) Psychological
2) Anthropological
3) Political
4) Rational

A) 1, 2, and 4
B) 2, 3, and 4
C) 1, 2, and 3
D) 1, 3, and 4

Question 32

What has been called the "oil of society"?

A) Music
B) Humor
C) Funeral rituals
D) Literature

Question 33

What is the largest ongoing community arts project in America?

A) Operation Gold Star Flag
B) The AIDS Memorial Quilt
C) The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall
D) The Faith, Hope, Love Project

Question 34

The largest area of empirical research in thanatology is concerned with the measurement of attitudes toward death and dying and more particularly

A) death anxiety.
B) hospice care.
C) suicide prevention and intervention.
D) the afterlife.

Question 35

Which of the following are included in Ernest Becker's "four strands of emphasis" in terror management theory (TMT)?
1) The world is a terrifying place.
2) There is always an underlying good versus evil struggle, and good ultimately prevails.
3) Because the terror of death is so overwhelming, we conspire to keep it unconscious.
4) The basic motivation for human behavior is the need to control our basic anxiety, to deny the terror of death.

A) 1, 2, and 4
B) 2, 3, and 4
C) 1, 2, and 3
D) 1, 3, and 4

Question 36

What has been characterized as the largest area of empirical research in thanatology?

A) NDEs
B) Death anxiety
C) Hospice and palliative care
D) Religious impact

Question 37

In reviewing death anxiety research, Robert Kastenbaum says that it

A) allows individuals to enjoy the illusion that death has been studied.
B) gives individuals an adequate picture of how death is perceived by human beings.
C) is especially valuable in answering gender-related questions.
D) is especially useful in answering questions of practitioners working with patients and bereaved people.

Question 38

In his emphasis relevant to terror management theory, Ernest Becker addressed

A) the need to control our basic anxiety and to deny the terror of death.
B) our belief that the world is generally not a terrifying place.
C) our inability to focus on threats, especially those that are political in nature.
D) terrorists' behaviors.

Question 39

In reviewing the status of research and practice in thanatology, Herman Feifel points out that the

A) fear of death is a monolithic variable.
B) human mind operates on various levels of reality or finite provinces of meaning.
C) human mind operates in an interdependent, not autonomous, manner.
D) conscious fear of death is unrelated to innate fears.

Question 40

Research into death anxiety has been characterized by Kastenbaum as

A) an express lane into the fear of death and dying.
B) data which is impractical and generally useless.
C) thanatology's own assembly line.
D) a unitary and monolithic set of variables.

Question 41

The disruption of survivors' lives, their ensuing grief and coping is generally given little attention in the media.

Question 42

Which of the following BEST describes a "cosmopolitan" society?

A) Ideas and practices are forward thinking.
B) Ideas and practices from other historical periods and cultures are valued and examined.
C) Culture, identity, history, and language are guarded from change due to a strong sense of pride.
D) Cultural complexity of a globalizing world is rejected.

Question 43

Approximately how much has the average life expectancy in the United States increased since 1900?

A) 5 years
B) 15 years
C) 30 years
D) 45 years

Question 44

________ has the longest life expectancy of countries worldwide.

A) Hong Kong
B) United States
C) Switzerland
D) South Africa

Question 45

The modern scientific approach to the study of death is usually traced to a symposium organized in 1956 by

A) Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
B) Herman Feifel.
C) Jacques Choron.
D) Avery Weisman.

Question 46

What term do social scientists use to describe the phenomenon of societies falling behind in dealing with new challenges resulting from rapid technological and social change?

A) Cultural lag
B) Globalization
C) Social lag
D) Managed advancement

Question 47

Even when curative treatments have ended, the effort to control circumstances around death and dying so that it comes out "right" is termed

A) plastinated care.
B) death anxiety.
C) terror management.
D) managed death.

Question 48

Which of the following is NOT cited in the text as a journal in the field of death and dying?

A) Illness, Crisis, and Loss
B) The Carnegie Journal of Death
C) Mortality
D) Death Studies

Question 49

Epidemiologic transition is BEST defined as the

A) shift in disease patterns characterized by a redistribution of deaths from the young to the old.
B) contribution of Americans' highly mobile life styles to making death less immediate and intimate.
C) change in cultural attitudes toward death as a significant determinant of how we live our lives.
D) trend toward more rapid and sudden death from epidemics.

Question 50

Which of the following factors does NOT affect our familiarity with death?

A) Life expectancy
B) Geographic mobility
C) Medical technology
D) Political decision making

Question 51

A euphemism is a shorthand way of referring to an exciting event.

Question 52

The establishment of death studies, in modern times, can be traced to explorations of death by

A) Saunders.
B) Becker.
C) Freud.
D) Kubler-Ross.

Question 53

In American blues music, themes of loss, separation, and tribulation are rarely heard.

Question 54

Themes of mayhem, misery and murder have long been staples of music. Suicide and deathbed scenes however are uncommon.

Question 55

Popular music devotes significant attention to death.

Question 56

Which of the following BEST describes the phrase "medical technology that seems to one person a godsend, extending life, may seem to another a curse"?

A) People do not know how to manipulate machinery.
B) People do not believe in the technology.
C) The effect of new technology helps define death.
D) The effect of new technology involves personal and social consequences and trade-offs.

Question 57

Hannelore Wass observes that the study of death and dying will

A) die out as people will be less interested in such obscure subjects.
B) become a pop culture phenomenon focused on the "hereafter."
C) be in the hands of the faith community.
D) help individuals and societies transcend self-interest in favor of concern for others.

Question 58

What are the two leading causes of death in the United States?

A) Suicide and Alzheimer's disease
B) Accidents and cancer
C) Alcoholism and stroke
D) Heart disease and cancer

Question 59

Word choices may reflect changes in how death is experienced at different times.

Question 60

According to Ulrich Beck, a German scholar and observer of the "cosmopolitan society," the human condition in the present century

A) is too dependent on medical technology.
B) cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally.
C) is too concerned about diversity and cultural awareness.
D) must engage in practical thanatology.

Question 61

The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is a small community arts project started in Washington, D.C.

Question 62

Elegies and eulogies are both often inscribed as a memorial on a tomb.

Question 63

Themes of suicide are uncommon in music today.

Question 64

The first lossography was published in 1971 in Psychology Today.

Question 65

Sylvia Anthony was a pioneer in the studies of adult survivors of trauma.

Question 66

At the turn of the century, young children were usually involved in activities surrounding the dead, including sleeping in the same room as the corpse.

Question 67

Wilson identified celebrity death as a category of death in country music.

Question 68

Luciana Fonseca and Ines Testoni were pioneers in the Italian "you and death" movement.

Question 69

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has declined requests to display mementos left by visitors at the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall.

Question 70

In the nineteenth century, most people typically purchased coffins and baked homemade desserts to bring to the home of grieving friends.

Question 71

A death café is an online blog started in Europe to help recently widowed men.

Question 72

Gospel and classical music do not include death themes in their compositions.

Question 73

The rapid advancement of technology and social changes has created a "cultural lag."

Question 74

People who describe themselves as religious suffer more death anxiety than their non-religious counterparts.

Question 75

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is an example of contemporary mourning art.