Self-control and the fear of death among adolescents in Hong Kong

Abstract

The fear of death, as one of the death attitude dimensions, is heavily studied. However, the potential influence of self-control on the fear of death is scarcely examined. Previous literature implies that self-control may be an influential element in determining the magnitude of the fear of death. However, no study, especially in the Asia region, has attempted to directly examine this relationship. Thus, the current study is among the first to investigate the effects of self-control on death fear in a group of Hong Kong adolescents. Gendered analyses, with and without being divided into different age groups, are performed. The exploration of the moderating impact of religious beliefs on self-control in influencing the fear of death is also examined. Using a cross-sectional design, a total of 1377 native Chinese secondary school-aged male and female adolescents of nine schools are surveyed. Overall, findings suggest that self-control is negatively correlated with the fear of death. Specifically, regression findings indicate that the decrease in self-control, as measured by different low self-control indicators across gender and age, is likely to increase the level of fear of death. Interestingly, findings signify that religiosity has a moderating impact on self-control in determining the level of death fear. On the whole, this study suggests that self-control plays a vital role in determining the level of fear of death among adolescents in Hong Kong. Potential caveats, future directions, and implications of the findings are addressed.

Keywords:

• adolescents
• fear of death
• self-control
• religiosity
• Hong Kong Chinese

Notes

1. Other religious beliefs such as Islam, Taoism, and other non-specified religions were categorized as ‘others’ because of the small amount of cases reported by the participants in this study.

2. Although the reliability of several self-control subscales (impulsivity, physical activities, and volatile temper) is lower than the desired alpha level of 0.70 (Nunnally 1978), low internal consistency may be due to highly skewed distributions of included items as this reduces ‘the size of the correlation between items and therefore also the alpha’ (Straus and Kantor 2005, p. 25). In addition, Cronbach's α is ‘dependent not only on the magnitude of the correlations among items, but also on the number of items’ (Streiner and Norman 1989, p. 64).

3. Low mean scores in self-control subscales mean low self-control in the respective areas (i.e. low impulsivity mean score means being more impulsive).

4. HKYWCA is one of the key non-governmental organizations to provide school social work services via the station of at least one registered social worker at each school.

5. T-test values are available upon request made to the authors.

6. To illustrate, even within the same culture, various religious traditions carry with them distinctive historical background of death-related issues, different socialization and social support systems for bereavement, and distinct types of spiritual resources for engaging in countless challenges of living and dying.