Citation

Neyra CJ, Range LM, Goggin WC. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 1990; 20(11): 861-868.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1559-1816.1990.tb01464.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

To see if suicide ideators responded differently than nonideators after success or failure experiences, 61 college students who were relatively high or low ideators participated in a computer task on which half got bogus success feedback, the other half got bogus failure feedback. Both groups then completed the Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL). Two (High versus Low Suicide) X 2 (Success or Failure) analyses indicated main effects for suicide on overall RFL and four of the six RFL subscales. Although there were no main effects for success versus failure, an interaction indicated that, in the failure condition, low suicidal subjects were significantly higher than high suicidal subjects in overall reasons for living. Results suggest that suicidal individuals may be vulnerable to failure, and may need interventions to help them avoid potential failure or to bolster their coping mechanisms.