Suicide Acceptability Malleability

The present study is divided into a pilot study, called Study 1, and a more comprehensive study, called Study 2. The present study aims to investigate whether suicide acceptability—one's view of the acceptability of suicidal behaviors—is malleable in the short term among individuals with no reported lifetime suicidal ideation, planning, or attempts. In order to change suicide acceptability, vignette manipulations designed to increase or decrease suicide acceptability, as well as a control vignette, were utilized. The primary hypotheses for Study 2 were that 1) The linear combination of Suicide Opinion Questionnaire (SOQ), Attitudes Towards Suicide (ATTS), and World Values Survey item (WVS) scores would be significantly different across vignette conditions; 2) A new measure derived from the 50 SOQ, ATTS, and WVS items would have acceptable (α ≥ .7) or better internal consistency reliability; and 3) Factor scores on this new measure would differ significantly across vignette conditions. Suicide acceptability was measured using three suicide attitude measures: The ATTS measure, the SOQ, and a WVS item. Data from other measures, such as interpersonal theory of suicide constructs, were also collected. Study 1 and Study 2 each utilized a Solomon four-group design, which allowed for examination of whether posttest scores differed across Study 1's design conditions (i.e., with vs. without a pretest battery) and across Study 2's design conditions (i.e., with vs. without a measurement of pretest Fearlessness About Death [FAD]). While Study 1 data suggested the presence of a possible effect of the vignette manipulation on suicide acceptability, Study 2 data did not bear out this finding. The new measure also was not significantly different across vignette conditions. Nevertheless, the new measure represents a theory-driven measure of suicide acceptability that has good psychometric properties and fits a one-factor model.