Optimistic Explanatory Style and Suicide Attempt in Young Adults

Abstract

Suicidal behavior, including suicide attempt, may result from maladaptive explanatory patterns for past negative life events, in which a person attributes the causes of stressors to internal, stable and global factors. Conversely, an optimistic explanatory style involves perceiving negative life events as external, transient and specific, and may be related to reduced suicide risk. We examined the association between attributional style and lifetime suicide attempts in 135 college students, covarying age, race and ethnicity. Participants provided informed consent and completed an online survey. An optimistic explanatory style was associated with reduced risk of suicide attempt; this effect persisted in a model controlling for hopelessness and depressive symptoms. The manner in which an individual interprets negative life events may buffer against suicidal behavior. Therapeutic strategies to promote an optimistic explanatory style may be successful in the prevention of suicide.Suicide is a critical public health problem and a leading cause of death during early adulthood, and of years of potential life lost before age 65 (National Center for Health Statistics 2013; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control 2014). Much research on suicide has justifiably focused on risk factors including cognitive and emotional dysfunction (Beautrais et al. 1999; Lynch et al. 2004), the experience of life stressors or interpersonal difficulties (Van Orden et al. 2005; Dixon et al. 1991), and the presence of psychopathology (Conwell et al. 1996), all of which are generally considered to exert a deterministically-poor effect on suicidal behavior. However, the interrelationships between these variables have been relatively unexplored, and there is some indication that our subjective perception of a stressor is a more robust indicator of poor outcomes than the simple experiencing of a stressor.

Negative life events and suicide risk in college students: Conditional indirect effects of hopelessness and self-compassion

“…At the bivariate level, negative life events, hopelessness, and suicidal behavior were all positively related to each other and inversely related to self-compassion, consistent with previous literature. 28,14,31 In multivariate models, hopelessness mediated the relation between negative life events and suicidal behavior, such that more negative life events were associated with increased hopelessness and, in turn, greater suicidal behavior. These findings support previous literature linking stressful events and hopelessness to suicidal ideation in the college student population.…”

“…These findings support previous literature linking stressful events and hopelessness to suicidal ideation in the college student population. 8,28,14,[31][32] The inability to resolve stressors, perhaps because of deficits in problem solving and interpersonal skills 33,34 , may lead to difficulties envisioning positive resolution to stressors or attainment of goals (i.e., hopelessness), and consequent suicide risk. [35][36] In our examination of conditional indirect effects, overall self-compassion, as well as its subcomponents of self-kindness and common humanity, buffered the association between the experience of negative life events and feelings of hopelessness, thereby reducing suicide risk.…”

The Impact of Positive Psychological Capital on Organizational Commitment in Public Sector Universities of KPK

“…Optimists hold belief that positivity begets favorable outcomes, whereas pessimists tend to fixate on negatives. Actions and behaviors of self-confident individuals tend to yield the constructive and positive possibilities (Hirsch & Rabon, 2015). Fayazi, Simarasl, and Kaveh (2010) discovered a prevalent belief that positive events occur more frequently than negative ones.…”