Filipino soldiers' attitude towards death

• Main Authors: Ang, Ferzana S., Lim, Kimberly M., Sanchez, Anjelica U.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Soldiers > Philippines; Death > Psychological aspects; Fear of death; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/8941
• Institution: De La Salle University

A forerunning cause of anxiety in men is death (Feifel, 1969) however, the existential vibrancy of human life and sharpened awareness of lifes temporality and recognition possess psychological features, which this study aimed to investigate. What if someone as close to death as soldiers were to anticipate their own deaths? How would they go about it? Sixty-eight Filipino soldiers, with ages ranging from 18-24 years old, were tested of their locus of control attributes and then two questions in relation to their perceptions and emotions towards their own death were tasked to be answered as well. The qualitative data were content analyzed where affect, behavior, and cognition surfaced as the main clusters of the soldiers attitude toward death and major themes of death were found in each cluster, particularly, fear and pain and sorrow (affect), nationalism, concern for love ones, sympathy for others, separation anxiety, fatalism, past memories, acceptance, survival, religious, more morally upright, and process of death (cognition), resolve issues with family and God, be with family, part properly with love ones , and achieve unaccomplished goals (behavior), among others. While there is no difference in perceptions between internal and externally attributed control subjects, there were, however, findings that led to how Filipino soldiers foresee their own death.