Relationships between implicit and explicit attitude toward death in college students / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the implicit attitude and explicit attitude toward death of college students,and the relationship between the two kinds of attitude.Methods:Totally 65 college studems participated in this study.The Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT,including cognition,affection and behavior) was used to exam the implicit attitude toward death of undergraduate students.The Death Attitude Profile-Revised (DAP-R,including five dimensions,i.e.,fear of death,death avoidance,death acceptance,escape acceptance,and neutral acceptance) was used to measure the explicit attitude.Results:Data of the SC-IAT indicated that the differences between the mean reaction time of the incompatible task and compatible in all three dimensions and the total SC-IAT were significant (Ps ＜0.01),and both the D scores of the total SC-IAT and three dimensions were larger than zero.The mean score of neutral acceptance was the highest in the five factors of SC-IAT.Relationships between the implicit effect of SC-IAT and the Mean scores of the DAP-R's five factors were not significant(Ps ＞ 0.05).Conclusion:The implicit attitude toward death of college students is negative,the explicit attitude toward death of college students is neutral.The implicit and explicit attitude toward death of college students is incongruent,and they are relatively independent.