A Qualitative Exploration of South Korean Emerging Adults’ Perspectives on Death and Suicide Through Short Stories

Abstract

Despite the alarming suicide rate among South Korean emerging adults, relatively little is known about their unfettered perspectives on death and suicide. Therefore, an innovative data collection technique was developed to apprehend the meanings that emerging adults attribute to death and suicide in their explorations of the phenomena through a selection of short stories. A convenience sample ( N = 114) responded to a survey in which participants transferred their feelings toward death and suicide to characters or events in the short stories. A qualitative content analysis revealed relatively permissive perspectives toward death and suicide. Negative perspectives on death are associated with societal victimization and positive perspectives with naturalistic fatalism. Positive perspectives on suicide are overwhelmingly rooted in existential, individual choices while negative perspectives focus on societal pressures. These perspectives contribute to illuminating tensions between traditionalist collectivism and contemporary individualism in Korean society that could inform suicide prevention initiatives for emerging adults.

“… I Really Prepared to Take My Life …”: Dynamics, Instruments and Suicidal Thoughts Among Nigerian University Students Following Social Media Reported Suicides

“…It all depends on the lens from which the person uses to see it. See the works of Campos et al (2019) and Prinsloo and Prinsloo (2019). Therefore, Kim et al (2018) in their lines of thought noted that suicide occurrences increase with age of individuals found in the social milieu where the incidence occurred.…”