International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 2, Issue 12, December-2011 1

ISSN 2229-5518

The Study of the Quality of Life and Personality

Traits of NEO Five Factors Concerning Death
Anxiety in Shahed University Students
Dr. Mohammad Ebrahim Maddahi,Dr.Javad Khalatbari, Mona Samadzadeh, Mehdi Amraei, Reza Ahmadi, Mohammad Mojtaba
Keikhayfarzaneh

Abstract— The present research aims to consider the relationship between quality of life and personality traits and death anxiety.
Personality traits consists of five components of NEO five factors questionnaire including Neuroticism, openness, agreeableness,
extraversion and being conscientious, respectively. 55 Shahed University students were selected as controls. Quality of life scales for
adults (pwi-A) of Cummins (2004) is used to assess the quality of life of the subjects, and the Neo-short form questionnaire of Costa and
Mckery is used to assess the subject’s personality traits, and Templer questionnaire is used to assess the subject’s death anxiety. The
correlation coefficient is used to statistically analyze the research data. The obtained results showed that there is a positive and significant
correlation between quality of life and agreeable personality traits and a significant negative correlation between neurotic personality traits.
Additionally, there is a positive non-significant relationship between quality of life and other personality traits ( extraversion, openness, and
being conscientious) but a significant negative correlation with death anxiety. There is also a positive significant correlation with death
anxiety and neurotic personality traits, a negative significant correlation with agreeable personality traits and a negative non-significant
correlation with other personality traits ( extraversion, openness and being conscientious).

Index Terms— quality f life, NEO five factors of personality traits, death anxiety.

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION

W e are always affected by death phobia and we are come

across by it many times during our life and then we
defend against it which is mostly based on denial and it
ing [2], it seems that such an applicable and basic research are
very important and so necessary. In addition, identifying these
variables and personality traits associated with death anxiety
helps in coping with death. However, we cannot remove it can be lead to a better understanding of their relationship
from our mind and we are always affected by it in our dreams which is so helpful in increasing the quality of life and com-
and imaginations. We are also fascinated by death in child- munity health of researchers , therapists, psychologists and
hood and one of the most important evolutionary tasks is to psychiatrists.
cope with the fear of annihilation [1]. Because of the fact that In a research conducted by Alward and colleagues (2006),
there is a close relationship between death and life and also the relationship between religious variables and depression
the individual’s personality traits can be effective in life im- and death anxiety has been examined. The results indicated
provement and also the amount of death phobia and the re- that those who have low amount of depression and death an-
search is limited in Iran, this question is raised that is there is a xiety have much stronger faith and are more thoughtful to the
relationship between quality of life and personality traits and life after death. The findings also discussed this issue that reli-
death anxiety? If so, what variables and personality traits are gious faith is more related to death anxiety than the religious
effective in? since so many personality traits and variables has practices. Manada Watt and Kawchehlova (2007) studied the
not yet been identified with death anxiety and also death and effect of age, gender and environmental conditions on the
mental problems related to death anxiety such as phobia, exis- amount of death anxiety in elderly people in India. A sample
tential anxiety, hypochondriasis and obsession, etc, is increas- consists of 299 people with the mean age of 70 years have been
selected for this reason. The research results showed that
———————————————— women and older subjects and also those who are living with
 Shahed University, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran. their families significantly indicate higher amount of death
 Department of Psychology, Ramsar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ram- anxiety . The results achieved from the effects of age and
sar, Iran
 University of Science & Culture, Department of Family Therapy, Tehran,
gender related to death anxiety in this Indian sample is the
Iran same as those of the western samples.
 Shahed University, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran. In a research conducted by Soheil and Akram ( 2002 ), the
 Shahed University, Department of Psychology, Tehran, Iran. relationship between death anxiety and gender, age and reli-
 Department of Psychology, Zahedan Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Zahedan, Iran gion among 132 randomly selected subjects have been studied.
The research results showed that older women and also those
subjects who have weaker faiths showed more fear to an im-
minent death. It is also indicated that women and the subjects
who had weaker faith showed more anxiety concerning vari-
ous aspects of death such as short life passing, complete isola-
tion affected by death, fear of destruction and disintegration of
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 2, Issue 12, December-2011 2
ISSN 2229-5518

body after death compared with their peers [3]. •Templer’s death anxiety questionnaire.
Kowin Wersnikof (1985) studied the relationship between The quality of life questionnaire for adults (PWI-A) is used
death anxiety and sense of purpose in life and perception of to consider the quality of life of the questionnaire for adults
time. The research showed that people with high death anxie- (PWI-A). This scale is made to be used by general adult popu-
ty complain about diminished sense of purpose to their life. In lation (Kamins, 2004). The questionnaire contains seven satis-
an another study studied the relationship between death an- faction articles that each one is concerned to one scope of qual-
xiety and age, Rasmosen (1996) showed that the difference in ity of life. Each of the questions is scored between 0-10 from
death anxiety may be because of the third variable namely the subjects. The scores achieved in each seven question were
psychological maturity indicated in the theory proposed by added up to obtain the general score of quality of life of the
Ericson. Rasmosen (1996) showed that psychological maturity scale and then it is compared with the normative data. Corre-
is a stronger maturity in predicting the death anxiety related lation coefficient resulted from twice application for the in-
to age by itself [3]. tended questionnaire is r=0.81 and Cronbach’s alpha of the
Diavla and colleagues (2003) studied in a research the rela- questionnaire was 0.90 in the mentioned sample, respectively.
tionship between death anxiety, their attitudes towards elder- The research findings indicate desirable reliability for the
ly people and individual anxiety related to among elderly men quality of life questionnaire (PWI-A) in the Iranian community
and women. A sample consisted of 197 men and women were (Naiinian & Sheri under publication) [4]. The validity is also
selected for this reason. The research results showed that neg- obtained 61% which indicates acceptable convergent validity
ative attitudes towards other adults can be predicted by indi- of the quality of life questionnaire (PWI-A) for the Iranian
vidual anxieties related to old age and death, especially fear- community.
ing from unknown things. Women score higher than their The quality of life questionnaire (NEO-FFI) is used to con-
male counterparts in the sub-scales of fear of dying and multi- sider the personality traits of NEO-FFI questionnaire. This tool
dimensional fear of death. The reports are also indicated that includes 60 questions and there is 12 articles to each factor
the African-American subjects achieved higher levels than which this articles were chosen according to having the high-
Caucasian subjects in each three scales of multi-dimensional est load factor associated with the desired trait. Response to
fear of death, fear of the unknown things and fear of death in this articles is possible in the form of 5-degrees Likert scale
awareness [3]. and the dimensions such as mental irritation, extroversion,
Sarvandian and Hassanpour ( 2003) studied, in a research, openness, agreeableness and responsibility are assessed (Rou-
the comparison between sense of loneliness and fear of death shan Chesli and colleagues, 2006) [5].
among women and elderly men living in Ahwaz city, and se-
lected a sample size of 60 women and 30 men ( by simple ran-
dom sampling ) for doing this research, and the results
3 RELIABILITY
showed that there is a significant difference between the fear The results of several studies indicate that the NEO-FFI sub-
of death and loneliness among elderly men and women. scales have good internal consistency. For example, Costa and
Considering this issue is interesting from various dimen- McCurry reported the alpha coefficient between 0.68 ( for
sions, firstly, it can theoretically be joined in this kind of re- agreeableness) and 0.86 ( for mental irritation). Helden re-
search set; in particular, the research is limited in this regard. ported the alpha coefficient of this five factors in the range of
Secondly, because the world is developing towards being 0.76 ( for agreeableness) and 0.87 ( for mental irritation). In
modernized and the quality of life has been increased today, another study, CRonbach’s alpha was between in the range of
this research can be used to show the impact of quality of life 0.73 ( for agreeableness) and 0.87 ( for mental irritation), re-
on death anxiety. Thirdly, since in psychology, it is aimed for spectively. It is indicated in an another research the appropri-
reducing disorders and enhancing the amount communities’ ate internal consistency ( higher than 0.70) of five factors, and
mental health, this research could be a turning point for what in an another research conducted by ( Roshan Chelsi and col-
variables are effective in increasing and decreasing death an- leagues, 2006), Cronbach’s alpha is shown for mental irrita-
xiety. And finally, if the personality traits associated with an- tion, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and responsibility
xiety can be predicted, more success can be achieved in reduc- as 0.84, 0.75, 0.74, 0.75 and 0.83, respectively [6].
ing anxiety and increasing the quality of life of the communi-
ties. 4 VALIDITY
McCurry and Costa mentioned that the shortened tool of
2 RESEARCH TOOL NEO-FFI is exactly compatible with its complete form namely
Three research tools are used to study the regarded variables NEO-PI so that the shortened form scales have a high correla-
in this research including: the quality of life questionnaire for tion of 0.68 with full-scale version of the NEO questionnaire.
adults (PWI-A) of Cummins, NEO personality traits question- They reported in an another research that NEO -five -factor
naire, Costa’s and McCurry’s short form and Templer’s death validity based on the spouse and peers assessments is in the
anxiety questionnaire. range of 0.24 to 0.36 ( for responsibility) and 0.48 to 0.65 (
•The quality of life questionnaire for adults (PWI-A) of agreeableness). It has been reported in this study that this tool
Cummins. determines 85% of variance in the convergent validity [6].
•NEO-FFI personality traits questionnaire.

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 2, Issue 12, December-2011 3
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5 TEMPLER’S DEATH ANXIETY QUESTIONNAIRE CORRELATION TEST RESULTS BETWEEN DEATH ANXIETY AND QUALI-
TY OF LIFE
The Templer’s questionnaire is used to consider the death
Correlation coefficient re- Statistic
anxiety. This scale is a tool to measure death anxiety which is
mostly applied one in its own types. This scale is a self-applied sults
questionnaire consists of 14 correct and incorrect questions.
The scores ranged from 0-14 and high score indicates high rate The amount of Correlation -0.462
of death anxiety. In a research conducted by Rajabi and Bo-
Significance level 0.000
hrani in Ahwaz University, the validity coefficient of the aver-
age scale of death anxiety was 0.62 and Cronbach’s alpha for Number 55
the whole questionnaire was 0.73. Correlation coefficient is
also calculated between death anxiety and the death worry
scale 0.40 and with apparent anxiety scale 4 [7]. According to table 2, there is a significant level between death
anxiety and quality of life with 99% confidence, that is, the
more a person scared of death, the less his/her quality of life,
6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY and vice versa, that is, the more a person’s quality of life, the
The current research statistical community is all the male stu- less he/she has death anxiety. There is a relationship between
dents (19-24 years) of Humanities College, Shahed University death anxiety and a series of mental disorders (neuroticism),
based on the available sampling method, in which 55 male and because some mental problems are created for individuals
subjects of Humanities College referred to the reference sec- by death anxiety, therefore It affects on individual’s under-
tion of this college were chosen. standing of personal welfare welfare (quality of life defined by
Frants is the same as our understanding of personal welfare )
[8] and there can be significant correlation amongst them,
7 RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS METHODS
which this research result is compatible with the one con-
The present research is a correlation one aims to consider ducted by Naderi and Esmaili ( 2008 ) concerning death anxie-
the relationship the concerned variables in this study. The ty and life satisfaction.
Pearson correlation measurement method has been used to
analyze the achieved data. TABLE 3
CORRELATION TEST RESULTS BETWEEN NEUROTIC PERSONALITY
TRAITS AND QUALITY OF LIFE
8 RESULTS
Correlation coefficient re- statistic
The results of statistical analysis of data regarding the con-
cerned hypotheses indicates as the follows: sults

The amount of correlation -0.492

TABLE 1
THE RESULTS OF CORRELATION TEST BETWEEN DEATH ANXIETY AND Significance level 0.000
NEUROTIC PERSONALITY TRAITS
Correlation Coefficient Re- Statistics Number 55

sults
According to table 3, there is a significant correlation between
The Amount of Correlation 0.425
the two variables with 99% confidence. The obtained results
Significance Level 0.001 indicate that the more the quality of life is increased, the more
the neurotic personality traits is increased including depres-
Numbers 55 sion, anxiety, hypochondriasis, fear, etc, and vice versa; that is,
the more individual’s welfare and socio-economical conditions
is desirable, the less his/her mental problems, and conse-
According to table 1, correlation is significant between death quently, the less he/she prone to mental disorders. Quality of
anxiety and neurotic personality traits with 99% confidence. life defined by Sowan and colleagues is a multidimensional
The obtained results show that neuroticism is increased when and intellectual concept including conceived emotional and
death anxiety is increased and neuroticism is divided to some mental-physical performance by the person [8]. Therefore, if
disorders by itself as anxiety, phobia, hypochondriasis , obses- someone’s quality of life is high, his/her neuroticism related
sion, depression, etc. As a result, high death anxiety means to environment and the problems concerned will be de-
making the situations appropriate for a series of mental dis- creased.
orders which sub-branches of neuroticism. However, there is
a negative non-significant relationship between anxiety and TABLE 4
other personality traits such as extroversion, openness and CORRELATION TEST RESULTS BETWEEN DEATH ANXIETY AND PER-
being conscientious. SONALITY TRAITS OF AGREEABLENESS

Correlation coefficient re- Statistic

TABLE 2
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 2, Issue 12, December-2011 4
ISSN 2229-5518

sults correlation with neuroticism, and this is compatible with the

quality of life definition proposed by Loukarnin and Hentinen
The amount of correlation -0.393 (1997) (quality of life is attributed to health) [4].
Significance level 0.003 Quality of life, especially quality of life associated with
Number 55 health is affected through individual’s experiences, faiths, ex-
pectations, emotions and attitudes [9]. It can therefore be said
that having high quality of life is positively related to health,
According to table 4, there is a significant correlation between
and it can be concluded, based on these findings, that death
the two variables with 99% confidence, and this indicates that
anxiety can have many effects on individual’s personality and
when someone’s death anxiety is increased, the amount of
makes change his views towards life. Because personality is a
his/her agreeableness is decreased and vice versa, therefore, it
determining factor to have relationship with external world,
is confirmed that the relationship between the two variables is
since if death anxiety made an effect in personality, it would
significant. Since an agreeable one is basically altruist. He is
also has an influence on individual’s relationship with envi-
sympathetic towards others and is eager to help them and
ronment and it can change individual’s quality of life which is
makes believe that others are mutually helpful and have good
achieved by a combination of their personality traits with en-
relationship with people and these features, especially having
vironmental factors. These findings are interesting and are
relationship with others, can decrease death anxiety.
worth being considered by later researchers and experiments
in this field which is must be more and more paid attention
TABLE 5
CORRELATION TEST RESULTS BETWEEN QUALITY OF LIFE AND PER- to.
SONALITY TRAITS OF AGREEABLENESS
REFERENCES
Correlation coefficient re- Statistic
sults [1] Yaloum, Ervin (1939), art therapy, Tehran, Karvan Publications.
[2] Motamedi, Gholamhussein (2007), human beings and death, an introduction
The amount of correlation 0.266
to identifying death, first publication, 2nd edition, Tehran, Markaz Pess.
Significance level 0.50 [3] Roushani, Khadijeh ( 2009), “ the relationship between intellectual and social
Number 55 intelligence with death anxiety in elderly people inhabited in Ahwaz city,
General Psychology MA, Azad University, Ahwaz branch.
[4] Mirjavadi, Sayedzohre ( 2010), “ the study of the relationship between occupa-
According to the results mentioned above, there is a signifi- tional stress and mental health and quality of life in Tehran Police Personnel,
cant correlation between the two variables with 95% confi- BA student of Shahed University.
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and personality traits of the individuals addicted and non-addicted to drugs ,
tive relationship with others can increase their quality of life,
MA student of Psychology, Shahed University.
and because an agreeable one is basically altruist, they are [6] Farshbaf, Khoshnazar, Esmaiel (2006), “ the study of the relationship between
more agreeable and popular than antagonistic ones and these emotional intelligence and personality among the Shahed University Stu-
features can also increase quality of life which is significantly dents, BA student of Psychology, Shahed University.
achieved by having relationship with others. [7] Rajabi, Mahmoud ( 2001) “ Templer’s death anxiety test standardization”,
Journal of Psychology, Shahdid Chamran University of Ahwaz.
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[9] Karlsson I, Berglin E, Larsson P A.(2000) Sense of cotherence: Qo I before &
The research results indicates that there is a negative signifi- after coronary arteyby pass surgery : Alongitudinal study .Journal of Ad-
cant correlation between death anxiety and quality of life vanced Nursing. 31(6): 1383-1392.
which these findings are compatible with those of previous
studies (Naderi and Esamilie (2008). There are also positive
and negative correlations between death anxiety and five NEO
characteristics as neuroticism, agreeableness, being conscien-
tious, flexibility and extraversion, respectively; that is to say, It
has a significant positive correlation with neuroticism, a nega-
tive significant relationship with agreeableness, and a negative
non-significant correlation with being conscientious, a nega-
tive non-significant correlation with flexibility and finally a
negative non-significant correlation with extraversion. It can
be generally said that there is a negative non-significant corre-
lation with five factor features of NEO personality traits ex-
cept for neuroticism and agreeableness. There is also a positive
and negative correlation between five factor features of NEO
personality traits and quality of life. There is a positive signifi-
cant correlation with quality of life and agreeableness and a
positive non-significant correlation with extraversion, open-
ness and being conscientious but a negative non-significant
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