This dissertation, "Death Orientations Among Chinese Undergraduates in Hong Kong and Beijing" by Wing-shan, Cheung, 張穎珊, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "Death orientations among Chinese undergraduates in Hong Kong and Beijing" Submitted by Cheung Wing Shan for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Psychology) at The University of Hong Kong in May 2005 Metaphors provide a way to describe death constructs that cannot be easily expressed in languages (Pollio, Barlow, Fine, & Pollio, 1977). Culturally speaking, Chinese people use metaphorical expressions to communicate emotions (Williams, 1920). Assessing death metaphors would help us to understand personal orientations of death among Chinese. Study One explored the personal orientations of death by analyzing death metaphors, and an instrument was established to assess death metaphors in Chinese. Thirty Chinese death metaphor statements were administered to 346 Chinese undergraduates (104 Hong Kong and 242 Beijing participants). Exploratory factor analysis of 104 Hong Kong participants revealed two 9-item factors, termed Positive and Negative Death Metaphor. Confirmatory factor analysis of this two-factor model among the 242 Beijing participants achieved a moderate fit (χ[124, N= 242] = 224.69, p Study Two examined the relationships between death orientations and life orientations among 101 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates. "Death Metaphors" and "Death Attitudes" were used to assess death orientations, while "Optimism" and "Suicidality" were used to assess positive and negative life orientations. "Death attitudes" were measured by the five subscales of Wong et al.'s (1994) Death Attitude Profile Revised (DAP-R). Positive life orientation of "Optimism" was measured by the Chinese version of the revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R; Lai et al., 1998). "Optimism" was positively correlated with the DAP-R "Neutral Acceptance" subscale. A model of "Optimism," "Positive Death Metaphor" and "Neutral Acceptance" was proposed and achieved a satisfactory fit in LISREL VIII (χ[165, N= 101] = 212.27, p Negative life orientation of "Suicidality" assessed in the Reasons for Living inventory for Adolescents (RFL-A; Osman et al., 1998) had significant positive correlations with the DAP-R "Approach acceptance" and "Death Avoidance" subscales. Models of "Suicidality (RFL-A)," "Positive Death Metaphor," "Approach Acceptance" and "Death Avoidance" were proposed and achieved a moderate fit with modifications in LISREL VIII (χ[243, N= 101] = 311.97, p In conclusion, the present studies established Chinese Death Metaphor Scale (CDMS) as the first instrument to assess personal death metaphors. In addition, models were proposed to describe the relationships between death metaphors, death attitudes, optimism and suicidality. Life orientations and death orientations were found to be interdependent. Possible applications of the uses of death metaphors in death e