「防衛」或「修養」：文化取徑的死亡因應心理研究

Abstract

恐懼管理理論認為：人類在面對死亡意念時，會啟動一系列心理防衛機制，包括將死亡想法壓抑至潛意識中，並藉由維護文化世界觀等方式提升和維持自尊，以抗衡對死亡事實無能為力的恐懼。不過，近來許多實徵研究與後設分析研究紛紛指出，在西方心理學占有一席之地的恐懼管理理論其實存有某些缺陷：雖然該理論在西方文化社會屢屢被印證，但卻經常無法符應非西方文化社會中的實際情形。為了探索問題所在，本研究使用普世性的自我與行動架構──「自我的曼陀羅模型」進行分析後發現，恐懼管理理論無法外推至非西方文化社會的原因在於其文化包容性的不足。有鑑於此，本研究繼續在自我的曼陀羅模型架構下，以華人文化為例，探討傳統儒、道、佛文化對死亡的理解，並將這些對文化脈絡的考量納入對創新理論的思考當中。經過理論層次的探討後，本研究選取華人社會的文化本源，亦是影響範圍和程度最為廣大的儒家文化進行實徵驗證。本研究的整體結果發現：儒家文化確實有著與西方文化相當不同的死亡恐懼心理因應內涵，例如儒家文化影響下的華人社會是直接在可知覺的意識層面（而非潛意識）對死亡進行思考，且以追求內在修養和圓滿人際關係（而非追求外顯個人價值和維護自尊）作為消解死亡恐懼的途徑。本研究希望藉由這些創新理論的思考及實徵研究的嘗試來修正和突破恐懼管理理論的限制，為往後建構能完整含攝文化的死亡因應心理學理論開啟可能性。

Terror management theory proposes that people often adopt defensive mechanisms, such as suppressing thoughts about death and protecting unique cultural worldviews unconsciously, to enhance self-esteem and overcome fear-of-death. Nonetheless, recent empirical studies and meta-analyses concluded that TMT cannot be verified and is not applicable in non-Western cultures, there are some limitations of TMT in predicting and explaining individuals’ fear-of-death in non-Western cultures. To solve this issue, this study put TMT in the Mandala Model of Self（an universal structure which describes human mind and action）and compared the cultural background of TMT with the Chinese traditions, then point out that there are such different ways facing to death in traditional Chinese society. For example, “thinking more about death in the consciously,” “making harmonious relationships between oneself and others, like family, mate, friends…” lead to the heightened cognitive accessibility of death and meaning of life in a Confucian society. 478 participants in Taiwan（represent the traditional Chinese Confucianism characteristics）were recruited for this study. The process of recalling near-death experiences was used to manipulate the participants’ feeling of mortality, then some following death-related situational judgment questions were asked in order to measure the participants’ concepts of coping strategies when faced the feeling of mortality. As predicted, results showed that the fear-of-death reducing process in Confucian society is different from that in Western cultures. People in a Confucian society usually think more about death in the conscious mind and dedicate their lives making harmonious relationships between themselves and others to reduce the fear-of-death. According to recent empirical studies and meta-analyses, TMT is no longer a universal theory as we once believed. As such, we need to take the issue of cultural tradition into consideration while conducting culture-inclusive fear-of-death studies. This study seeks to explain how cultural tradition impacts an individual’s concept of death and to generate new interests in culture-inclusive psychological theories on the topic of fear-of-death in the hope of finding better solutions.