Ideas Welcome!

[Katharine]

Interesting but the flaw I see is who is writing the obit for the paper. My brother is a man of few words and would use as few as possible whatever he or any of the rest of the family felt. How does that affect your results?

My aged mother lost one son through an accident when he was 13 and later my father from a brain tumour. The accident sounds silly in that he fell and hit his head on the corner of a house while playing with water pistols. There weren't brain scans in those days. It absolutely devastated my parents at the time. In the last few years Mother has talked about my brother a lot, she 'sees' him with 2 fair haired daughters. With my father there was a build up to it, he was in a coma for some time before he died, when he went it was actually a relief. How do you compare?

[Mid A 15]

Just in case anyone is in a helpful mood...
My final year Research Project is edging more towards Evolutionary Psychology than Zoology, but hey-ho.

I'm testing to see whether there is any relationship between the intensity of human grief, and the Reproductive Value of the deceased - sounds morbid, I know, but it is in fact fascinating. (I promise).

In zoological terms, Reproductive Value is based on an individual's production of offspring. So, if you have a thousand kids, you have a higher value than someone with only one. Making sense? And if your children have children, then your value is, again, higher. But, there's a differential between men and women, and an individual's age - men have the potential to reproduce at an earlier age than women, and continue until they die, whereas women start reproducing later, and after the menopause have a RV of 0.

This is all very clinical, and so I'm trying to find a correlation between RV and the intensity of a human emotion. For example, would you feel more grief at the loss of a child, ("who had their whole (reproductive) life ahead of them") or a parent (who was past reproductive age)?

The last study on this topic was in 1983, and the guys used hypothetical questions in a questionairre, which I really don't agree with. My data is from obituary notices, and I'm going by the number of words, the number of adjectives, and then ranking the adjectives (which is the difficult bit) and putting this against the person's age. Not hugely qualitative, but there's no way you can be with human emotion, amd much more emotionally draining than I ever thought it would be.

Comment?

My personal view for what it is worth is that no death is easy to cope with.

However it is SLIGHTLY easier if you have time to prepare for the death.

My Mother in Law collapsed and died in the street, having just left the theatre with my sister in law and niece, at the age of 65 completely unexpectedly back in 1997. She left 6 children and numerous grandchildren.

Her loss affected and still does affect all of us in that it has changed attitudes to life and even personalities.

The grief has certainly been intense but whether that is because so many have been affected by her death or it would have been anyway I couldn't say.

I don't know whether this is relevant or not to your studies. Apologies if it is not.

[Emma Jane]

what if you get " finally "?

In what sense?

[Emma Jane]

Emma, I had written a fairly lengthy and (for me) sensible reply, but as I was about to post it my dog hit my PC's off button with his nose, so it was all lost.

I know this sounds a bit like "my housemaster's cat was sick on my essay during break, honestly", but it's the truth.

I have to get ready to go to London for the Bluecoat Concert now, but Ill attempt a sensible post tomorrow.

That's a good excuse. Almost as good as Caspar Wilkinson's "I got locked in the shower room and had to wait til one of the cleaners got me out" excuse for being late to Mr Gladding's lesson!
No worries..

[Katharine]

Are you using just one paper or more? I would imagine that if you regularly read the obits in a particular paper, you would think in 'their' terms. If you don't read it regularly then you might say something quite different. I am intrigued by the idea of what you are doing and how you are doing it. I am NOT trying to be a devil's advocate!

Interesting what you said about my brother's death. Trying to be coldly clinical would a mother mourn less for a younger child as she had invested less?

When I lived in Pakistan a child was not named for the first year, should it survive that long it had a good chance of survival. I gather other societies have similar ideas about the child establishing itself before being named.

[Katharine]

Looks as if Emma Jane has removed the post I was replying to, while I wrote.

[Emma Jane]

Are you using just one paper or more? I would imagine that if you regularly read the obits in a particular paper, you would think in 'their' terms. If you don't read it regularly then you might say something quite different. I am intrigued by the idea of what you are doing and how you are doing it. I am NOT trying to be a devil's advocate!

Interesting what you said about my brother's death. Trying to be coldly clinical would a mother mourn less for a younger child as she had invested less?

When I lived in Pakistan a child was not named for the first year, should it survive that long it had a good chance of survival. I gather other societies have similar ideas about the child establishing itself before being named.

It's nice that someone's interested. I usually just get a strange look whilst being told I'm morbid. Not at all true.

Theoretically, yes, a mother would mourn less for a child in whom she'd invested less. But it gets complicated because there's such a difference in the reproductive value between males and females.

What you mention about Pakistan is interesting. There have also been studies in the US regarding infanticide - it is committed significantly more by step-parents than natural parents, and in other parts of the world like India with its caste system is interesting. Parents from lower castes are more likely to commit infanticide against a son than a daughter, and vice versa in the higher castes.

[englishangel]

I don't think you can assess grief from a newspaper obit. there is a 'house style' that they follow.

My aunt died recently having emigrated to Oz many years ago. My Mum wanted to put an obit in their home town paper, she had to provide a copy of her death certificate and it cost 40p a word so it just gave the bare information.

In my local paper last week were 3 obits for the same person from various branches of the family, each more flowery and gushing than the last and it costs 20p a word.

[AKAP]

I too find the idea of this research interesting.
There are many valid comments on your proposed research methodology which you may take on board.
One thing I learnt form Mr James (Ratty) who I always thought was a great Chemistry teacher and now realise in fact that he was a brilliant teacher: The scientific value is not in the result but in the research.
i.e even if you find that studying obits does not take the knowledge on this subject any further forward, if the research has been done properly it still has scientific value.
I will be fascinated to hear the result and also how you have ironed out some of the issues raised.
Limiting your research to one obit author will eliminate a number of variables.

[Euterpe13]

what if you get " finally "?

In what sense?

I'll expand, to demonstrate non-application of the RV quotient in determinate cases :
-my father died at age 50, after having been ill for many years- death was a release for him but the grief felt was unbearable for us all, and the void still exists - and yet " finally" would have been feasible in recognition of his release

- my brother died at age 34, essentially healthy but unhappy for many years and psychologically an outcast on this planet - so his death was in a sense a " returning home" - his grave-stone bears the words " he has returned to the light". His youth should indicate a high RV, but grief was mitigated, and in my case almost non-existant, as he is better off where he is - so " finally" is also feasible here.

Perhaps my family simply specialise in inverse RV/ emotion ratios...

[Emma Jane]

Looks as if Emma Jane has removed the post I was replying to, while I wrote.

Apologies... I had submitted the same post twice and was removing one!

[Emma Jane]

I don't think you can assess grief from a newspaper obit. there is a 'house style' that they follow.

My aunt died recently having emigrated to Oz many years ago. My Mum wanted to put an obit in their home town paper, she had to provide a copy of her death certificate and it cost 40p a word so it just gave the bare information.

In my local paper last week were 3 obits for the same person from various branches of the family, each more flowery and gushing than the last and it costs 20p a word.

Fortunately enough, the paper (a local one in Liverpool) I am using does not have a 'house style'. They write word for word what the person wants written, and prices start at £3.85 per line for a standard obit. One particular one that stood out last week took up 2 columns and nearly the full length of the page, and the basic price for this type of notice is £1600. Fortunately enough, these type of obits seem to be for younger people, although I haven't started my analysis, this seems to be a trend.

The number of obits per person is something I am using to correlate, as is how 'flowery and gushing' they are.

[Emma Jane]

I too find the idea of this research interesting.
There are many valid comments on your proposed research methodology which you may take on board.
One thing I learnt form Mr James (Ratty) who I always thought was a great Chemistry teacher and now realise in fact that he was a brilliant teacher: The scientific value is not in the result but in the research.
i.e even if you find that studying obits does not take the knowledge on this subject any further forward, if the research has been done properly it still has scientific value.
I will be fascinated to hear the result and also how you have ironed out some of the issues raised.
Limiting your research to one obit author will eliminate a number of variables.

There are many issues raised, which will be more than helpful in my discussion. Apparently, presuming the write-up is of a high enough standard, my results may be publishable, as this is a topic that has not been researched in any depth.
The use of only the one paper, I think, is the best way. As it has no 'in house' style, I don't need to take that in to consideration, which I would have to with other papers.
Thank you!

[Emma Jane]

My personal view for what it is worth is that no death is easy to cope with.

However it is SLIGHTLY easier if you have time to prepare for the death.

My Mother in Law collapsed and died in the street, having just left the theatre with my sister in law and niece, at the age of 65 completely unexpectedly back in 1997. She left 6 children and numerous grandchildren.

Her loss affected and still does affect all of us in that it has changed attitudes to life and even personalities.

The grief has certainly been intense but whether that is because so many have been affected by her death or it would have been anyway I couldn't say.

I don't know whether this is relevant or not to your studies. Apologies if it is not.

Totally. Death brings out so many (negative) emotions, which you can't put a number on, they are that complex. My method is not in any way going to simplify the matter, I just want to see if there is any correlation, from an evolutionary view.

[Richard Ruck]

Fortunately enough, the paper (a local one in Liverpool) I am using does not have a 'house style'. They write word for word what the person wants written, and prices start at £3.85 per line for a standard obit. One particular one that stood out last week took up 2 columns and nearly the full length of the page, and the basic price for this type of notice is £1600. Fortunately enough, these type of obits seem to be for younger people, although I haven't started my analysis, this seems to be a trend.

The number of obits per person is something I am using to correlate, as is how 'flowery and gushing' they are.

E.J., are you using family notices in the 'Births, Marriages and Deaths' bit of the paper rather than the more formal obituaries as carried by the broadsheets?

You could always do a bit of on-line research, e.g. do notices in, say, South Wales tend to be more 'flowery and gushing' than those in, perhaps, Newcastle?

Could be time-consuming, but might be revealing......