Situational Analysis of Attitudes Toward Suicide Behavior

The purpose of the present study was to discern whether there were differences in the attitudes of suicidal ideators and nonideators toward suicide victims in different situations (cancer, AIDS, schizophrenia, and depression). Two hundred twenty-eight college students completed a suicide ideation questionnaire and read one of four scenarios. People in the cancer and AIDS scenarios were viewed as the most physically unhealthy and the most justified in committing suicide. Suicide ideators saw the people in the scenarios as justified in committing suicide more often than did nonideators