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The effects of individualistic-collectivistic value orientations on non-fatal suicidal behavior and attitudes in Turkish adolescents and young adults
Abstract and Figures
This study aimed at investigating the effects of individualistic-collectivistic value orientations on non-fatal suicidal behavior and attitudes in Turkish adolescents and young adults. A questionnaire containing measures of individualism, collectivism (INDCOL), non-fatal suicidal behaviors and suicidal attitudes was used to collect the data. The results showed that both suicidal ideation and attempts were significantly more frequent in participants classified as individualist than those who were classified as collectivist on the basis of INDCOL scale scores. Participants with individualistic tendencies displayed more permissive attitudes toward suicide than those with collectivistic tendencies but collectivists believed to a greater extent than the individualists that people should communicate suicidal problems to others. Participants with collectivistic tendencies showed more accepting and helping reactions to an imagined suicidal friend than those with individualistic tendencies. Suicidal ideation and attempts were more common among adolescents than young adults. The findings suggest that individualistic and collectivistic value orientations and developmental status specific stressors play a role in the distribution of nonfatal suicidal behavior and the nature of suicidal attitudes.
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... Suicide stigma was assessed by the two-item hiding suicide subscale from Eskin's Attitudes Towards Suicide Scale (E-ATTS) (e.g., "Families whose daughter or son attempts suicide should hide this from their neighbors."; Eskin, 2013Eskin, , 2004; α = 0.77). Participants rated the two items on 5-point Likert scales ranging from "totally disagree" (1) to "totally agree" (5). ...
... We used the 4-item Communication of Psychological Problems Subscale from E-ATTS (Eskin, 2004(Eskin, , 2013 to assess the extent to which people endorse willingness to seek help for psychological and suiciderelated distress (e.g., "A person who thinks and plans suicide should tell this to his/her friends and thereby ask for help"; α = 0.82). Participants responded to the items on 5-point Likert scales ranging from "totally disagree" (1) to "totally agree" (5). ...
... The 8-item Suicide Acceptability Subscale from the E-ATTS (Eskin, 2013(Eskin, , 2004 assessed the extent to which people saw suicide as an acceptable option in some dire situations (e.g., "Someone who is tired of living has the right to kill him/herself"; α = 0.92). Participants responded to the items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "totally disagree" (1) to "totally agree" (5). ...
Background
Values associated with neoliberal ideologies are blamed for damaging the social fabric. They may also have deleterious effects on suicidal ideation.
Objective
We investigated whether neoliberal values were associated with the risk for suicidal ideation through a set of mediating factors (suicide stigma, help-seeking attitudes, perceived stress, and suicide acceptability).
Methods
A total of 508 (249 female) adults from the U.S. responded to a self-administered questionnaire that contained measures of suicidal ideation, neoliberal values, suicide stigma, help-seeking attitudes, perceived stress, and suicide acceptability. We tested a path model that linked neoliberal values to suicidal ideation through multiple mediators. We tested total versus partial mediation models.
Results
We found empirical evidence for a full mediation of the association of neoliberal values with perceived stress. Neoliberal values were associated with suicide stigma; suicide stigma was associated with negative attitudes towards help-seeking, which, in turn, were associated with high levels of perceived stress. The association of neoliberal values with suicide acceptability was partially mediated. Perceived stress was positively associated with suicide risk directly and indirectly through suicide acceptability.
Conclusion
Our findings suggest that values related to neoliberal ideologies prepare a context that fosters the risk for suicide. For a contextualized understanding of suicidal behavior, more research is needed that explores the role of social, cultural, political, and economic ideologies in the suicidal process.
... Recent studies have revealed that this situation may have changed in Turkiye. In a study conducted by Eskin (2013) on high school and university students, it was seen that individualistic tendencies may be more prominent than collectivistic tendencies in Turkiye. As a result of the cluster analysis, it was found that approximately 40% of the participants had both collectivistic and individualistic characteristics. ...
This study develops and validates the fifteen-item Turkish version of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale Short Form (CAAS-5-SF) with a cooperation dimension. The data of the study were collected from 1.575 different high school students (aged between 15 and 18 years) in Turkiye. It has been observed that the scale has acceptable validity and reliability values. Significant relationships were obtained between the CAAS-5-SF and perceived stress, problem-solving self-efficacy and career adaptation responses.
... Consequently, alternative strategies beyond temporary measures are required, as well as short-term educational efforts focusing on public stigma and technical aspects. Community attitudes may function as surrogate markers for sociological variables that in uence the phenomenon of suicide, such as individualism-collectivism [73] and social integration [9]. ...
Purpose:
Attitudes toward suicide are essential in suicide prevention, as suicide is socio-culturally nuanced. Although the relationship between individual attitudes and suicidal behavior has been extensively studied, the role of community attitudes—aggregated by region—on suicide mortality remains ambiguous. This study explored the association between community attitudes and real-world suicide mortality.
Methods:
Data on attitudes toward suicide from the 2018 Korea National Suicide Survey (N=1500) and individual mortality data from the MicroData Integrated System were obtained. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a factor structure with three factors: "Permissiveness," "Unjustified behavior," and "Readiness to help/Preventability." Thirty regional units in South Korea aggregated the data for ecological analysis. We used negative binomial models to examine the association at the regional level, and stratified analysis by gender and age group was conducted.
Results:
"Permissiveness" was associated with reduced suicide rates in a univariate model (P<0.001). Adjusting for gender, age, and additional sociodemographics did not alter the association. Additionally, this relationship was observed in males and individuals under 60 years of age after stratification. However, "Unjustified Behavior" and "Readiness to help/Preventability " exhibited no significant association with suicide in any model or stratum.
Conclusion:
The observed inverse association between permissive community attitudes and suicide contradicts the findings of previous research that links permissive individual attitudes to increased suicidal behavior. Instead, our findings indicate that attitudes may behave differently at the individual and group levels, and this could potentially guide future research and novel approaches to suicide prevention.
... The scale has a clear-cut factor structure and good psychometric properties. 21,22 The Cronbach's alpha of acceptability of suicide, punishment after death, suicide as a sign of mental illness are 0.9 each, that of communicating psychological problems 0.67, hiding suicidal behaviour 0.73, and open reporting and discussion of suicide 0.57. Permission was obtained from the author, Eskin M, through email to use the scale. ...
... India &Sarita, 2016), pro-social decisions under social infl uence (Wei, Zhao, & Zheng, 2016), academic honesty vs. dishonesty (Koscielniak & Bojanowska, 2019), aggressive behaviour (Knofo, Danie, & Kassabri, 2008), academic achievement (Tarabashkina & Lietz, 2011;Asghar, Rathore, & Siddiqui, 2019), participation in school activities (Hofer, Schmid, Fries, Zivkovic, & Dietz, 2009), suicide attempts (Eskin, 2013) and sexual behaviour (Goodwin, Realo, Kwiatkowska, Kozlova, Nguyen, & Nizharadze, 2002). ...
... India &Sarita, 2016), pro-social decisions under social influence (Wei, Zhao, & Zheng, 2016), academic honesty vs. dishonesty (Koscielniak & Bojanowska, 2019), aggressive behaviour (Knofo, Danie, & Kassabri, 2008), academic achievement (Tarabashkina & Lietz, 2011;Asghar, Rathore, & Siddiqui, 2019), participation in school activities (Hofer, Schmid, Fries, Zivkovic, & Dietz, 2009), suicide attempts (Eskin, 2013) and sexual behaviour (Goodwin, Realo, Kwiatkowska, Kozlova, Nguyen, & Nizharadze, 2002). ...
In future, changes in science and society will increasingly demand interdisciplinarily prepared professionals and researchers. Inter/transdisciplinarity has been worked on theoretically and scientifically examined. The review study shows how both approaches are explained, how they are put into the practice of doctoral studies, what the results are of the interdisciplinary approaches applied, but also their limits and barriers.
Suicide is a critical concern for psychologists given the complexity of suicide risk and fatal consequences. Using self-determination theory (SDT) as a framework, we examined the relationships between self-concealment, basic psychological needs, collectivism, and suicidality in a sample of adults in the United States (n = 199). Self-concealment is an interpersonal pattern of hiding sensitive personal information from others and has been correlated with increased suicidality. We tested a model whereby unmet basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence, and relatedness) mediated the relationship between self-concealment and suicidality. We also included collectivist cultural orientation as a moderator. We found that greater self-concealment was associated with more dissatisfaction with all three basic needs. However, only dissatisfaction with the relatedness need was associated with more suicidality. The effect of relatedness need dissatisfaction on suicidality was moderated by collectivism such that the effect was stronger for participants who were higher in collectivism. We found support for SDT as a framework for theory driven exploration of self-concealment and suicidality. The significant moderating effect of collectivism also highlights the importance of including cultural variables in future research. We include a discussion of implications for research, intervention, and prevention.
This study focused on the well-being of the survivors of suicide attempts and the well-being of their interpersonal relationships after the attempt. The data came from a sample of 392 college students from ten Muslim majority countries who reported having attempted suicide in the last four years. Suicide was conceptualized as a goal-directed behavior embedded in a sociocultural context and motivated by personal or interpersonal goals. We tested a process that linked culturally shaped self-construal to the post-suicidal personal and interpersonal well-being. We posited that this process would operate through the attitudes towards suicide, motives for suicide, the strength of the intention to die. Our model indicated that the acceptability of suicide was positively associated with escape motives, and this association was even stronger for the individuals with interdependent self-construals. Escape motives were negatively associated with post-suicidal personal and interpersonal well-being, but communication motives were not associated with these outcomes. We also found evidence that having an interdependent self-construal might be beneficial for post-suicidal personal and interpersonal well-being. Our results further suggested that the post-suicidal personal and interpersonal well-being of highly interdependent individuals may depend on the interpretation of their act of suicide by their close others.
Are Americans more individualistic and less collectivistic than members of other groups? The authors summarize plausible psychological implications of individualism–collectivism (IND-COL), metaanalyze
cross-national and within-United States IND-COL differences, and review evidence for effectsof IND-COL on self-concept, well-being, cognition, and relationality. European Americans were found to be both more individualistic—valuing personal independence more—and less collectivistic—feeling duty to in-groups less—than others. However, European Americans were not more individualistic than African Americans, or Latinos, and not less collectivistic than Japanese or Koreans. Among Asians, only Chinese showed large effects, being both less individualistic and more collectivistic. Moderate IND-COL effects were found on self-concept and relationality, and large effects were found on attribution and cognitive style.
This article reports differences across 23 countries on 2 processes of emotion regulation––reappraisal and suppression. Cultural dimensions were correlated with country means on both and the relationship between them. Cultures that emphasized the maintenance of social order––that is, those that were long-term oriented and valued embeddedness and hierarchy––tended to have higher scores on suppres-sion, and reappraisal and suppression tended to be positively correlated. In contrast, cultures that minimized the maintenance of social order and valued individual Affective Autonomy and Egalitarianism tended to have lower scores on Suppression, and Reappraisal and Suppression tended to be negatively correlated. Moreover, country-level emotion regulation was significantly correlated with country-level indices of both positive and negative adjustment. The 37 coauthors of this article, in alphabetical order by last name, are as follows:
Suicidal behavior and its variation across social contexts are of importance for the science of suicidology. Due to its special character controlled experimental studies on suicide are ruled out for ethical reasons. Cross-cultural studies may throw light on the etiology of both suicidal behavior and its cross-cultural variation. The present study compared suicidal behavior and attitudes in 423 Slovak and 541 Turkish high school students by means of a self-report questionnaire. The two groups reported similar percentages (Slovak = 36.4%; Turkish = 33.8%) of life-time, past 12-months or current suicidal ideation but significantly more Turkish (12.2%) than Slovak (4.8%) students reported life-time or past 12-months suicide attempts. Slovak adolescents displayed more liberal and permissive attitudes towards suicide, while those of Turkish adolescents were more rejecting. Turkish students rated themselves to be more religious and hence they believed to a greater extent that suicidal persons would be punished in a life after death than their Slovak peers. However, attitudes of Turkish students towards an imagined suicidal close friend were more accepting than the attitudes of Slovak students. Comparison of suicidal and nonsuicidal students revealed that those reporting suicidal ideation or attempts were more accepting of suicide and viewed suicide as a solution to a greater extent than the non suicidal ones. The results from this study suggest that cultural factors play a role in suicidal behavior, attitudes and reactions in a predicted direction.
A theory of individualism and collectivism The evolution of individualism and collectivism theory and research is reviewed. The antecedents of collectivism–individualism can be found in the ecology, family structure, wealth distribution, demography, history, cultural diffusion, and situational conditions. The consequences of collectivism–individualism include differences in attention, attribution, cognition, emotion, motivation, self-definitions, values, language use, and communication, as well as other kinds of social and organizational behavior. Applications of individualism and collectivism include improvements in conflict resolution, health, international relations, and cross-cultural training. Culture is to society what memory is to individuals (Kluckhohn, 1954). It consists of what “has worked” in the experience of a group of people so it was worth transmitting to peers and descendents. Another definition of culture was provided by anthropologist Redfield (1941): “Culture is shared understandings made manifest in act and artifact.” In short, culture is shared behavior and shared human-made aspects of the society. Thus, ...
A growing body of research has demonstrated important variations in the prevalence, nature, and correlates of suicide across ethnic and sexual minority groups. Despite these developments, existing clinical and research approaches to suicide assessment and prevention have not incorporated cultural variations in any systematic way. In addition, theoretical models of suicide have been largely devoid of cultural influence. The current report presents a comprehensive analysis of literature describing the relationship between cultural factors and suicide in three major ethnic groups (African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos) and LGBTQ1 sexual minority groups. We utilized an inductive approach to synthesize this variegated body of research into four factors that account for 95% of existing culturally specific risk data: cultural sanctions, idioms of distress, minority stress, and social discord. These four cultural factors are then integrated into a theoretical framework: the Cultural Model of Suicide. Three theoretical principles emerge: (1) culture affects the types of stressors that lead to suicide; (2) cultural meanings associated with stressors and suicide affect the development of suicidal tendencies, one's threshold of tolerance for psychological pain, and subsequent suicidal acts; and (3) culture affects how suicidal thoughts, intent, plans, and attempts are expressed. The Cultural Model of Suicide provides an empirically guided cohesive approach that can inform culturally competent suicide assessment and prevention efforts in future research and clinical practice. Including both ethnic and sexual minorities in our investigations ensures advancement along a multiple identities perspective.