Psychological Reports, 197 1, 29, 173-174.

@ Psychological Reports 197 1

DEATH ANXIETY SCALE MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, A N D EMBEDDWG

DONALD I. TEMPLER The Car~ier Clinic, Belle Mead, N . J. AND CAROL F. RUFF Western State Hospital, Hopkinrville, K y

Summary.-A table of means and standard deviations on the Death Anxiety Scale for 23 categories of Ss was presented. Embedding of the Scale's items apparently had little or no effect upon scores.

Although no actual norms have been established for the Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), a considerable amount of relevant data has been collected both during and subsequent to its construction and validation (Templer, 1969, 1970). Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for 23 categories of Ss from 7 different studies involving over 3600 adults and adolescents. Scale scores range from 0 to 15; means of normal Ss tend to be roughly from 4.5 to 7.0; the standard deviations a little over 3.0. Psychiatric patients obtain higher scores than normals. Females consistently have higher DAS scores than males. In the project involving over 2500 Ss from 19 to 85 yr. of age, there was no relationship between age and DAS scores (Templer, Ruff, & Franks, 1971). In the construction and validation of the DAS, the items were embedded in the last 200 items of the MMPI. In a study relating DAS score to GSR elicited by death-related words, the DAS items were embedded in the 156 MMPI items that constitute Byrne's Repression-Sensitization Scale (Templer, in press b ) . However, in the other studies the DAS items were not embedded (Templer & Dotson, 1970; Templer, Ruff, & Franks, 19711). The advantage of not embedding the DAS items is the saving of administration time. In order to determine if the embedding of the items has an effect upon DAS score, the DAS was administered to 158 students at Hopkinsville (Kentucky) Community College. The items were embedded for 78 Ss, 30 males and 4 8 females; and not embedded for 80 Ss, 32 males and 48 females. The embedded items were placed in the last 200 items of the MMPI. For the non-embedded DAS, items were placed before the 200 MMPI items so that both groups would complete questionnaires in approximately equal time and thereby obtain the impression that they were working on identical material. The embedded and nonembedded DAS items were given to every other S. The DAS means are 7.08 and 7.30 for the embedded and non-embedded administrations respectively ( t = .45, ns). The standard deviations are 3.36 and 2.75 for the embedded and non-embedded administrations respectively, and the variances are 11.29 and 7.58 (F = 1.49, p < .O5 ) . Since there did not appear to be any readily apparent explanation for the significant difference in variance, replication was done to rule out a Type I error. The DAS was administered in a similar fashion to 186 different students ' . E. Pandey & D. I. Templer. The death anxiery of Negro and white college stuR
dents. (Unpublished paper)