Bernau John A
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Omega (Westport). 2024 Nov;90(1):120-142. doi: 10.1177/00302228221098893. Epub 2022 May 12.
Kübler-Ross's five-stage model of death and dying-denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance-is one of the most popular theoretical models to come out of the 20th century. How did an obscure theory of the dying process come to dominate our understanding of emotional processes altogether? Building on previous work in the sociology of knowledge, I analyze the diffusion and institutionalization of Kübler-Ross's five-stage model in scientific and journalistic fields. Specifically, I analyze all 3216 citations of Kübler-Ross in the and the database using qualitative and quantitative text analysis. I demonstrate how early scientific interest and commercial promotion led to adoption in popular culture, and document how the five-stage model expanded to cover everything from rent prices to COVID-19. I also argue that renewed interest in Kübler-Ross's work may signal contemporary attempts to mine the tradition for meaningful understandings of death and dying.
库伯勒-罗斯的死亡与临终五阶段模型——否认、愤怒、讨价还价、抑郁和接受——是20世纪最流行的理论模型之一。一个关于临终过程的晦涩理论是如何完全主导我们对情感过程的理解的呢？基于先前在知识社会学方面的研究，我分析了库伯勒-罗斯五阶段模型在科学和新闻领域的传播与制度化。具体而言，我使用定性和定量文本分析方法，分析了《纽约时报》和《科学引文索引》数据库中对库伯勒-罗斯的所有3216次引用。我展示了早期的科学兴趣和商业推广是如何导致该模型在大众文化中被采用的，并记录了五阶段模型是如何扩展到涵盖从租金价格到新冠疫情等所有事物的。我还认为，对库伯勒-罗斯著作重新产生的兴趣可能标志着当代人试图从这一传统中挖掘对死亡与临终的有意义理解。
