Death Perspective Scales

Abstract

The Death Perspective Scales (DPS), developed by Bernard Spilka, Larry Stout, Barbara Minton, and Douglas Sizemore in 1977, represent a foundational psychometric instrument within the field of thanatology and the psychology of religion. Designed to challenge the prevailing unidimensional paradigm that conceptualized death orientation exclusively through the lens of death anxiety and fear, the DPS assesses the multifaceted cognitive, affective, and existential meanings individuals assign to mortality. The instrument consists of 43 self-report items structured across eight distinct subscales: (1) Death as Pain and Loneliness, (2) Death as an Afterlife of Reward, (3) Indifference toward Death, (4) Death as the Unknown, (5) Death as Forsaking Dependents, (6) Death as Courage, (7) Death as Failure, and (8) Death as a Natural End. Responses are recorded on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree). Psychometric evaluation of the original normative sample (N = 328) revealed moderate to high internal consistency estimates across subscales, with Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (K-R 20) and equivalent Cronbach’s alpha coefficients spanning from .71 (Indifference toward Death, Death as a Natural End) to .92 (Death as an Afterlife of Reward). Construct, convergent, and discriminant validity have been confirmed through empirical linkages with intrinsic and extrinsic personal religious orientations, existential purpose, and experimental mortality salience paradigms. The DPS remains an influential framework for researchers and clinicians examining end-of-life attitudes, palliative care coping, bereavement, and the intersection between spiritual commitment and existential confrontation.

Keywords

Death Perspective Scales, thanatology, death anxiety, multidimensional mortality, psychology of religion, afterlife beliefs, existential psychology, psychometrics, death attitudes, palliative care

Authors

The Death Perspective Scales were conceptualized, developed, and validated by a collaborative research team at the University of Denver:

• Bernard Spilka, Ph.D. – Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, United States. A renowned scholar in the scientific study of religion, existential psychology, and thanatology.
• Larry Stout, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, United States.
• Barbara Minton, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, United States.
• Douglas Sizemore, Ph.D. – Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, United States.

Purpose

For decades, empirical thanatology was dominated by the operational premise that human orientation toward mortality could be captured adequately along a single continuum of fear versus acceptance. Popularized by early assessment tools such as the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), this reductionist view overlooked the complex tapestry of cultural, cognitive, emotional, and spiritual interpretations individuals form regarding dying and nonexistence. Recognizing these psychometric and conceptual limitations, Spilka and colleagues (1977) constructed the Death Perspective Scales to measure the authentic, multidimensional nature of human reactions toward death.

The primary purpose of the DPS is to operationalize death not merely as a feared biological cessation, but as an existential event charged with diverse personal, relational, and philosophical meanings. The instrument specifically aims to:

• Differentiate between affective distress (e.g., physical agony, terminal isolation) and existential evaluation (e.g., ultimate failure, courage, biological harmony).
• Elucidate the complex interactions between religious commitment—specifically intrinsic versus extrinsic orientations—and specific death perspectives.
• Capture socio-relational anxieties, such as guilt stemming from leaving dependents vulnerable and unsupported.
• Provide researchers, palliative clinicians, and pastoral counselors with a nuanced diagnostic and exploratory tool to identify maladaptive versus adaptive death constructs in clinical, geriatric, and healthy populations.

In clinical and palliative settings, the DPS facilitates targeted psychotherapeutic interventions. For instance, rather than treating general death anxiety uniformly, clinicians can ascertain whether a patient’s primary distress is rooted in interpersonal guilt (Death as Forsaking Dependents), dread of isolation (Death as Pain and Loneliness), or existential despair (Death as Failure). In experimental thanatology and social psychology, the scale provides a refined dependent measure for investigations into Terror Management Theory (TMT), mortality salience, and worldview defense mechanisms.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underpinning the DPS is multidimensional death perspective, defined as the constellation of cognitive interpretations, emotional appraisals, and existential values that an individual projects onto the reality of dying and mortality. Rather than treating death attitudes as a unitary affective state, the DPS delineates eight distinct phenomenological domains:

1. Death as Pain and Loneliness (6 items)

This dimension taps into the somatic and interpersonal dread associated with the dying process. It captures the apprehension of acute physical agony, prolonged terminal suffering, and the psychological horror of dying alone. Individuals scoring high on this scale perceive mortality as an isolating, torturous ordeal that severs connection with the living world.

2. Death as an Afterlife of Reward (6 items)

Reflecting classical transcendent and eschatological worldviews, this construct measures the belief that biological death serves as a gateway to spiritual rebirth, heavenly reward, and eternal union with the divine. It represents a profoundly positive, consoling perspective wherein death is viewed as the ultimate fulfillment and resolution of earthly trials.

3. Indifference toward Death (5 items)

This subscale assesses an emotional detachment and neutral apathy toward the concept of mortality. Characterized by stoic nonchalance or defensive minimization, high scorers view death as inconsequential, mundane, and neither worthy of dread nor anticipation. It reflects an orientation where the individual shrugs off the existential gravity of nonexistence.

4. Death as the Unknown (6 items)

This dimension operationalizes cognitive ambiguity and existential uncertainty. Death is conceptualized as the ultimate impenetrable mystery, an uncharted territory about which human understanding fails. High scores signify deep intellectual perplexity, cognitive disorientation, and the unease stemming from absolute unpredictability.

5. Death as Forsaking Dependents (5 items)

This interpersonal dimension measures guilt, moral distress, and practical apprehension regarding the abandonment of loved ones. It reflects the acute concern that one’s death will leave dependent family members materially, emotionally, or socially vulnerable to life’s hardships, framing dying as an act of failure in fulfilling relational obligations.

6. Death as Courage (5 items)

Rooted in existential and characterological paradigms, this scale frames the confrontation with mortality as the ultimate crucible of personal integrity, honor, and fortitude. Death is viewed as a definitive test of one’s core values, providing an opportunity to face the inevitable with dignity, heroism, and moral strength without succumbing to despair.

7. Death as Failure (6 items)

This perspective views death as a tragic termination that permanently arrests personal potential, goal attainment, and self-actualization. High scorers interpret mortality as an existential defeat—an arbitrary barrier that renders life’s struggles futile and extinguishes personal meaning, dreams, and life aspirations.

8. Death as a Natural End (4 items)

Reflecting a biological and ecological perspective, this subscale captures acceptance of death as an inherent, harmonious component of the natural life cycle. Individuals scoring high conceptualize physical death as a normal, orderly consequence of temporal existence, devoid of intrinsic malice, tragedy, or metaphysical terror.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the Death Perspective Scales rests at the intersection of cognitive appraisal theory, existential psychology, and the multidimensional psychology of religion. Spilka and his contemporaries sought to dismantle the monolithic assumption that personal faith or existential awareness produces uniform outcomes across individuals.

Central to Spilka’s model is the theoretical work of Gordon Allport and J. M. Ross (1967) regarding Intrinsic versus Extrinsic religious orientations, alongside Russell O. Allen and Bernard Spilka’s (1967) formulation of Committed versus Consensual religion. Intrinsic, committed religion involves internalizing spiritual values as a master motive for living, fostering internal coherence, mature acceptance, and integrated meaning. Conversely, extrinsic, consensual religion utilizes religious participation instrumentally for social status, comfort, or convention. Spilka et al. (1977) theorized that because religion is inherently multidimensional, its relationship with death must also be multifaceted:

• Intrinsic and committed personal faith provides cognitive and emotional buffers against existential dread, fostering perspectives such as Death as an Afterlife of Reward and Death as Courage.
• Extrinsic and conventional faith, lacking internalized existential resolution, fails to neutralize fears of vulnerability, resulting in elevated scores on Death as Pain and Loneliness, Death as Failure, or defensive Indifference.

Furthermore, the DPS aligns theoretically with Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and existential meaning systems. Frankl asserted that human beings do not fear biological death in itself as much as they fear meaningless cessation or unfulfilled purpose. The dimensions of Death as Failure and Death as Courage directly mirror this existential dialectic between despair and tragic optimism. Later theoretical integrations also bridge the DPS with Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1986), explaining how individuals deploy either cultural-transcendent worldviews (Afterlife of Reward) or secular-naturalistic frameworks (Natural End) to maintain psychological equanimity against mortality awareness.

Validity

Empirical validation of the DPS has confirmed robust construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity across varied experimental and descriptive contexts.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Initial construct validity was derived from extensive psychometric refinement of earlier iterations developed by Hooper and Spilka (1970) and Minton and Spilka (1976). In the seminal 1977 validation study by Spilka et al., intercorrelations among the eight subscales demonstrated substantial conceptual distinctiveness: out of 28 bivariate correlation coefficients, 13 fell below .20, reflecting high discriminant autonomy, while 7 exceeded .40, reflecting theoretically coherent inter-relationships among affective sub-domains.

Convergent and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity was established through systematic correlations with validated measures of religious orientation. Spilka et al. (1977) administered the DPS alongside the Allport-Ross Intrinsic-Extrinsic Scales (1967) and the Allen-Spilka Committed-Consensual Scales (1967). As theoretically hypothesized, intrinsic and committed religious orientations correlated significantly and positively with favorable and constructive death perspectives, most notably Death as an Afterlife of Reward and Death as Courage. Conversely, extrinsic and consensual orientations exhibited significant positive associations with distress-laden and maladaptive perspectives, including Indifference toward Death, Death as Pain and Loneliness, and Death as Failure.

Experimental and Criterion-Related Validity

Experimental validation was demonstrated by Schoenrade (1989), who utilized the DPS to examine cognitive adaptations under acute mortality salience. Participants stratified by high versus low afterlife beliefs were exposed to an audiotape simulating their own untimely death. A higher-order factor analysis of the DPS revealed three overarching dimensions: Negative (Pain and Loneliness, Unknown, Forsaking Dependents, Failure), Positive (Afterlife of Reward, Courage), and Neutral (Natural End). High-belief participants confronted with their mortality exhibited the highest Positive perspective scores, whereas low-belief participants not confronted with mortality exhibited the highest Negative scores, verifying the scale’s sensitivity to experimental manipulation and worldview defense.

In applied research, Spilka, Spangler, Rea, and Nelson (1981) administered subscales of the DPS to 273 Christian clergy across 11 denominations to assess attitudes toward terminal illness and pastoral care. Clergy selectively emphasized Death as an Afterlife of Reward while demonstrating low endorsements of Death as Failure or Death as Forsaking Dependents, demonstrating criterion validity within specialized occupational cohorts.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the Death Perspective Scales was rigorously assessed during initial instrument development using Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (K-R 20), appropriate for dichotomous or Likert-type aggregated items. The internal consistency coefficients across the eight subscales demonstrate commendable psychometric stability:

• Death as an Afterlife of Reward (6 items): K-R 20 = .92
• Death as the Unknown (6 items): K-R 20 = .87
• Death as Pain and Loneliness (6 items): K-R 20 = .79
• Death as Forsaking Dependents (5 items): K-R 20 = .78
• Death as Failure (6 items): K-R 20 = .77
• Death as Courage (5 items): K-R 20 = .72
• Indifference toward Death (5 items): K-R 20 = .71
• Death as a Natural End (4 items): K-R 20 = .71

These values demonstrate that all subscales meet or exceed the conventional psychometric threshold of .70 for exploratory and basic research instruments, with the Afterlife of Reward and Unknown subscales exhibiting exceptional precision. Although test-retest reliability was not longitudinally tracked in the original 1977 publication, subsequent experimental implementations (e.g., Schoenrade, 1989) confirmed temporal stability in non-manipulated control conditions over multi-week intervals.

Factor Analysis

The structural composition of the DPS was established through an iterative exploratory factor analytic program. Spilka et al. (1977) initiated item generation from an original reservoir of 180 items developed by Hooper and Spilka (1970). This initial pool was systematically winnowed down to 60 items, designed a priori to represent 10 theoretical perspectives: natural end, pain, loneliness, unknown, punishment, forsaking dependents, failure, afterlife of reward, courage, and indifference (6 items per hypothetical factor).

The 60-item battery was administered to a normative sample of 328 Christian participants comprising university undergraduates and 74 adult parishioners from a Methodist congregation in Boise, Idaho. The data were submitted to Principal Components Analysis (PCA) followed by orthogonal (Varimax) rotation.

The empirical factor analysis resulted in an 8-factor solution rather than the hypothesized 10-factor structure, leading to two key theoretical and structural realignments:

• Item Elimination: Items intended to capture “Death as Punishment” failed to form an independent, coherent factor and were eliminated due to high cross-loadings and lack of unique variance.
• Factor Consolidation: Items designed to measure “Death as Pain” and “Death as Loneliness” loaded heavily onto a single common component, prompting their merger into the unified dimension Death as Pain and Loneliness.

A final selection criterion requiring high primary factor loadings (≥ .45) and negligible secondary cross-loadings yielded the standardized 43-item instrument across the eight verified factors. In secondary factor analyses conducted by Schoenrade (1989), principal axes extraction demonstrated that these eight first-order factors reliably aggregate into three higher-order existential constructs: Negative perspectives (accounting for the largest share of shared variance), Positive perspectives, and Neutral perspectives, while Indifference remained orthogonal to the primary affective clusters.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational administration standards and scoring parameters for the Death Perspective Scales are summarized below:

• Test Type: Multi-dimensional self-report psychological rating scale.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil or computer-administered questionnaire; individual or group testing.
• Item Count: 43 items distributed across 8 primary subscales.
• Response Scale: 6-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Slightly Disagree, 4 = Slightly Agree, 5 = Agree, 6 = Strongly Agree).
• Subscale Item Composition:
  • Death as Pain and Loneliness (6 items): Items 1, 9, 17, 25, 32, 38
  • Death as an Afterlife of Reward (6 items): Items 2, 10, 18, 26, 33, 39
  • Indifference toward Death (5 items): Items 3, 11, 19, 27, 34
  • Death as the Unknown (6 items): Items 4, 12, 20, 28, 35, 40
  • Death as Forsaking Dependents (5 items): Items 5, 13, 21, 29, 36
  • Death as Courage (5 items): Items 6, 14, 22, 30, 41
  • Death as Failure (6 items): Items 7, 15, 23, 31, 37, 42
  • Death as a Natural End (4 items): Items 8, 16, 24, 43
• Scoring Protocol: All items are direct-scored (no reverse-scored items). Subscale raw scores are derived by calculating the direct sum or mean of the respective subscale items. Higher scores reflect stronger alignment with that particular death perspective. Summed score ranges are:
  • Pain and Loneliness: 6 to 36
  • Afterlife of Reward: 6 to 36
  • Indifference toward Death: 5 to 30
  • Death as the Unknown: 6 to 36
  • Death as Forsaking Dependents: 5 to 30
  • Death as Courage: 5 to 30
  • Death as Failure: 6 to 36
  • Death as a Natural End: 4 to 24
• Estimated Completion Time: 10 to 15 minutes.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Death Perspective Scales were formally introduced to the scientific community in 1977 in the peer-reviewed article “Death and Personal Faith: A Psychometric Investigation” published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Spilka, Stout, Minton, & Sizemore, 1977). As an academic instrument published in scholarly literature for basic research purposes, the scale is generally available under fair use academic provisions without licensing fees for non-commercial educational, clinical, and scholarly investigations. Researchers utilizing the DPS are required to cite the primary validation paper and adhere to standard psychometric attribution standards. Commercial exploitation, clinical digital packaging, or distribution within proprietary software suites requires formal copyright permissions from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) or the author estate.

References

• Allen, R. O., & Spilka, B. (1967). Committed and consensual religion: A specification of religion-prejudice relationships. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 6(2), 191–206. https://doi.org/10.2307/1384046
• Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal religious orientation and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432–443. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0021212
• Hooper, T., & Spilka, B. (1970). Some meanings and correlations of future time and death among college students. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 1(1), 49–56. https://doi.org/10.2190/0A37-J1V1-V9B0-1V3E
• Minton, B., & Spilka, B. (1976). Perspectives on death in relation to powerlessness and form of personal religion. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 7(3), 261–268. https://doi.org/10.2190/R23V-5V3F-5VFE-7YF8
• Schoenrade, P. A. (1989). When I die . . . : Belief in afterlife as a response to mortality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15(1), 91–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167289151009
• Spilka, B., Spangler, J. D., Rea, M. P., & Nelson, C. (1981). Religion and death: The clerical perspective. Journal of Religion and Health, 20(4), 299–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01533291
• Spilka, B., Stout, L., Minton, B., & Sizemore, D. (1977). Death and personal faith: A psychometric investigation. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 16(2), 169–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385747

Items of the Scale