The effect of personality traits on interpersonal perception towards suicide ideation among adolescents

Suicide is a serious issue that must be dealt with mainly because it has caused 1.4% deaths worldwide, making it the 17th leading cause of death in 2015 (World Health Organization, 2015). This study\u27s aim was to integrate the existing knowledge in the theories of suicide from Joiner\u27s (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide (IPTS), Van Orden, Witte, Gordon, Bender, & Joiner\u27s (2008) integration of the variable hopelessness to the IPTS, and O\u27Connor\u27s (2011) motivational-volitional theory. The researchers wanted to address the gap of relating predisposed personality traits to the interpersonal psychological theory of suicide behavior. The researchers hypothesized that one\u27s predisposed personality traits (i.e. low optimism, lack of ability to cope and high perfectionism) may indicate his/her interpersonal perception in terms of perceived burdensomeness (PB) and thwarted belongingness (TB) which could then lead to feelings of hopelessness and eventually thoughts of suicide. The researchers tested the hypothesis on students that are 18-21 years old through a series of tests. Path analysis was used to analyze the data with SPSS and AMOS. Results showed that low optimism and lack of ability to cope lead to maladaptive perceptions in terms of having TB and PB. This then leads to feeling hopeless about one\u27s situation which results to suicide ideation. The researchers were then able to conclude that if a person does not cope well and have low optimism in life, he/she could be more susceptible to suicide based on the conceptual model