Pervasiveness of the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief
The Kubler-Ross model of grief outlines five stages that people supposedly sequentially go through with the death of a loved one—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. In Bonanno et al. (2002)’s terms, this is the “common grief” trajectory: the expectation that following a death, a person is supposed to show increased depressive symptoms for a period of time but then they should eventually return to their pre-death levels. Despite more recent scientific evidence (much of Bonanno’s research) demonstrating that people vary in their bereavement responses (many do not display high levels of the depressive symptoms while others continue experiencing them), this model still maintains a strong following in the scientific community, in popular media, and among the general public.
The pervasiveness of this model despite much evidence discrediting it can be understood in terms of cascade models. In the scientific community, there has been much research on the common grief trajectory. It was one of the first models that attempted to neatly conceptualize the grieving process. It has been popular since the publication of Kubler-Ross’s 1969 book On Death and Dying; plenty of time has elapsed for research to accumulate based on it. With this vast literature focused on this popular model, researching alternative explanations is a daunting endeavor. As a result, not many scientists attempt it. The media and regular people would also be biased toward the model because it has been around awhile, and it is what they have grown to expect (it has set norms for proper grieving). The expectations of the public feed the media, and the media caters to the public, resulting in bidirectional reinforcement of the belief in the model. In addition, with scientists, who people look to for information, failing to reject the old model, the newer grief process research findings are unlikely to gain a foothold.
Sources
Bonanno, G. A., Wortman, C. B., Lehman, D. R., Tweed, R. G., Haring, M., Sonnega, J., et al. (2002). Resilience to loss and chronic grief: A prospective study from pre-loss to 18 months post-loss. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1150–1164.
Copp, G. (1998). A review of current theories of death and dying. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28, 382–390.