Sentido de la vida y afectividad negativa (ansiedad, depresión y obsesión por la muerte) en universitarios

Abstract

By means of this research, we have tried to establish the relationship between the "attitudinal competence", meaning in life, and negative affectivity (death anxiety, death depression, and death obsession) in university students. We have studied the influence of sociodemographic variables in the specific constructs of "meaning in life " and "negative affectivity", such as: sex, age, autonomous community, fields of study, educational context (type of teaching institution), life experiences in relation to death, religious confession and practice, through the questionnaire Purpose in Life (PIL), and scales such as Death Anxiety Scale (DAS), Death Depression Scale-Revised (DDS-R), and Death Obsession Scale (DOS). The results have shown a negative relationship between the two constructs above mentioned. The data we have obtained have also allowed us to profile, in quite a definite way, the Spanish university once we have taken into account the variables we have studied. So, the proposals that follow from these results tend to be focused on both the promotion and development of the integral formation of young people as a means of getting what should be considered a real education at university level, since we are totally convinced that both interest and potentiality as to the sense o life and death are basic in order to improve cognitive awareness and understanding of issues which are directly related to the transcendence of life.