| accommodation | A process whereby a new group adapts to the values or customs of a dominant social group by making adjustments that allow for the existing group's interests.
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| assimilation | A process whereby the values or customs of a new group are incorporated by a dominant social group so that the values of the new group fit into the existing social network.
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| cognitive transformations | In Piagetian theory, the manner in which an individual's mode of understanding the world changes in sequential stages from infancy to adulthood, especially with respect to organizing and reasoning about ideas and experiences.
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| cultural competency | An understanding that involves awareness of oneself and others as cultural beings so that ethnocentrism and stereotyping are avoided and culture is recognized as diverse and as involving multiple identities that are not defined simply by ethnicity.
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| culture | Everything in human society that is socially rather than biologically transmitted; the ways of thinking, feeling, and acting--that is, the lifeways--of a given group of people.
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| emerging adulthood | A period of human development associated with the late teens through the mid-twenties when people in modern societies may no longer view themselves as adolescents but may not see themselves entirely as adults.
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| ethnocentrism | The fallacy of making judgments about others solely in terms of one's own cultural assumptions and biases.
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| existential dread | Anxiety or fear related to the ultimate prospect of one's own death.
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| fantasy reasoning | The use of unrealistic examples or arguments to explain what causes death and what it means in biological and empirical terms.
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| irreversibility | A component of the mature concept of death that recognizes biological death as final and not reversible.
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| local identity | A shared appreciation of the geography, people, and culture associated with a particular place and the values commonly held by its residents.
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| magical thinking | (1) The notion that one's angry thoughts or feelings can cause harm or even death to others. (2) The notion that one is responsible for bringing an illness on oneself even though there is no evidence for making this assumption.
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| mature concept of death | An understanding of death that includes recognition of the observable facts about death--universality (all living things eventually die), irreversibility (death is final), nonfunctionality (it involves cessation of all physiological functioning), and causality (there are biological reasons for the occurrence of death)--as well as an understanding of personal mortality; that is, one's own eventual death.
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| noncorporeal continuity | The notion, usually related to spiritual or religious beliefs, that the human personality or soul survives in some form after the death of the physical body.
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| nonempirical ideas about death | Ideas about death that are not observable and not subject to confirmation as factual.
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| nonfunctionality | An understanding of death as involving the cessation of all physiological functioning or signs of life.
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| parental messages | Direct or indirect communications from parents to children about what death is and how to behave appropriately toward it.
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| personal mortality | The understanding that not only do all living things die eventually, but that "I will die."
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| psychosocial development | In Eriksonian theory, a model of human development that focuses on significant turning points, or crises, that require a response from the individual in the context of his or her relationships with the environment and with other individuals.
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| recuerdo | A form of remembrance intended to memorialize the dead and comfort the living that is usually presented as a written narrative or ballad that tells the story of a person's life in an epic, lyrical, and heroic manner.
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| religiosity | The relative importance of religion in a person's life as displayed through emotional ties and commitment to the religion, participation in its ceremonies, the degree to which it is integrated in the person's life, and knowledge about the religion and its traditions, beliefs, and practices.
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| replaceability | In the context of socialization about how to cope with loss, the notion that grief can be minimized by quickly replacing, for example, a pet who has died with another pet without allowing the griever time to acknowledge the loss.
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| resocialization | The restructuring of basic attitudes, values, or identities that occurs when adults assume new roles that require a reevaluation of their existing values and modes of behavior.
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| social construction of reality | The notion that every society constructs or shapes its own version of how the world works, as well as its truths or meanings, including the meaning and place of death in people's lives.
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| social learning theory | The idea that individuals learn how to behave as members of a society through a process of conditioning that involves reinforcement of social norms by means of rewards and punishments.
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| social norms | Rules and guidelines that prescribe what a given society considers to be appropriate behavior (normal) in particular situations.
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| social structure | Aspects of a society's institutional structure that influence social life by helping make it orderly and predictable.
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| socialization | The process of learning and internalizing the beliefs, values, rules, and norms of a society.
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| society | A group of people who share a common culture, a common territory, and a common identity, and who interact in socially structured relationships.
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| subculture | A group that shares a distinctive identity and lifestyle within a larger society. A subculture may share a specific ethnic heritage, or it may be unique because of history, language, place of origin, economic circumstances, or other distinctive qualities.
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| symbolic interactionism | A social theory that emphasizes the freedom of individuals to construct their own reality as well as to potentially reconstruct what has been inherited by actively responding to the social structures and processes in their lives.
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| tactical socialization | In the context of informal death education, strategies used to change individuals' perceptions and behaviors about some aspect of their social world.
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| teachable moments | Informal opportunities for learning that arise out of ordinary experiences and occur in an interactive and usually spontaneous process.
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| universality | An understanding of death as all-inclusive, inevitable, and unavoidable; that all living things die.
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