EmoÃÃes e estratÃgias de coping frente à morte de crianÃas em situaÃÃo de rua e de nÃvel socioeconÃmico mÃdio / Emotions and coping estrategies concerning death in street children and from the middle socioeconomic class

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

The objective of this research is to investigate the emotions and coping strategies concerning death in street children and children from the middle socioeconomic class (MSEC), aged 7 to 12, considering the influence of age, gender, and schooling. The concept of biological death is seen as complex, multidimensional, covering ideas such as universality, non-functionality and irreversibility. Besides the naturalistic aspects, the non-naturalistic aspects were also considered, which refer to the understanding of death as something with supernatural aspects, involving intangible beings, forces, or elements. Emotions are conceived as intrinsically articulated to cognition, made up of a set of actions or movements which can be publicly manifested through corporal expressions, as well as through research instruments. Coping strategies refer to the cognitive and behavioral efforts of people to deal with stressful situations. The following instruments were used: 1) Script for semi-structured interviews, designed to collect the socio-demographic data of the sample; 2) Telling a story about a boy who experiences the death of his pet; 3) Account of Personal Experience: after asking the questions related to the character in the story, the child was asked if he/she had ever lived through a situation similar to the boyâs in the story; 4) Instrument for Exploring the Concept of Death, developed by Torres to investigate the three elements of the concept of death in children; The results indicate that the emotion of sadness and the coping strategy of Denial were more associated to MSEC girls, who had a better understanding of the three components of biological death, while the reactions of crying were more peculiar to street children, who presented a greater diversity of emotions, using the Facing strategy to deal with stress. It was observed that the lower understanding of the components of death by the street children correlates with age (older children have a better understanding), but especially with schooling, since the street children, for the most part, were further back in school. It was also observed that the fact that a child goes to church regularly also has an influence in the ease of explaining and understanding death. Thus, the study points out the importance of School and Church in facilitating the apprehension of the concept of death in children. Lastly, the results indicate an articulation between emotion and cognition when they suggest that sadness, as well as coping strategies centered on emotion are related to a greater cognitive sophistications, or to a greater command of the concept of death, while crying and the strategies that focus more on the problem are further from this comprehension

ASSUNTO(S)

morte emotions death psicologia cognitiva estratÃgias de coping coping strategies emoÃÃes

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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