Near-Death Experiences and Antisuicidal Attitudes

Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been reported to decrease fear of death and foster a “romanticized” view of death, yet also promote antisuicidal attitudes. This study was an empirical investigation of psychodynamic hypotheses suggested to explain that paradoxical effect, using a thirty-six-item questionnaire constructed for this purpose. One hundred-fifty near-death experiencers (NDErs) and forty-three individuals who had come close to death but not had NDEs (nonNDErs) rated as true or false twelve antisuicidal attitudes that have been hypothesized to result from NDEs. NDErs endorsed significantly more of the antisuicidal statements than nonNDErs, and among NDErs, number of statements endorsed was positively associated with depth of experience. Those antisuicidal attitudes that showed the greatest difference in endorsement rate between NDErs and nonNDErs related to transpersonal or transcendental beliefs. These data support prior naturalistic observations that NDEs foster antisuicidal attitudes by promoting a sense of purpose in life.

Some Observations on Wording of Item-Stems for Attitude Questionnaires

The purpose of this research was to examine whether mean differences in endorsement rate to reversed item-stems of the same attitude statement can occur independent of acquiescence and if these observed differences have any effect when summed in relation to an outside criterion. Using two within-group designs, a significant number of mean differences between item-stems were found. Analyses showed that these observed differences were not due to the effects of acquiescence. However, for both groups, total scores based on items where mean differences in endorsement were observed correlated significantly with total scores based on items where no mean differences in endorsement were observed. Also, minor variations in mean rate of endorsement due to the direction of the item-stem wording had little effect on the correlations between the summated attitude scores and the outside criterion.