Citation

Loibl LM, Tran US, Hirner A, Voracek M. Psychiatr. Danub. 2008; 20(1): 26-30.

Affiliation

Department of Basic Psychological Research, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria, lisa.loibl@univie.ac.at.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Facultas Universitatis Studiorum Zagrabiensis - Danube Symposion of Psychiatry)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

18376327

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Lay theories on abnormal behavior and mental disorders have been growing as a field recently. Lester and Bean have contributed to these endeavors by developing the Lester and Bean Attribution of Causes to Suicides Scale (1992), an instrument that gauges beliefs concerning the causes of suicidal behavior (intrapsychic, interpersonal, and societal causes). OBJECTIVES: To provide test-retest reliability figures (two-month interval) and to further validate the scale. METHODS: The instrument was administered to 155 Austrian psychology undergraduates. Test-retest reliabilities, scale intercorrelations, and correlations with locus of control, among others, were ascertained. RESULTS: Test-retest reliabilities amounted to r = 0.67 for intrapsychic, 0.53 for interpersonal, and 0.56 for societal causes, and to 0.59 for the total scale (all ps < 0.001). All three subscales were, as previously observed, significantly positively intercorrelated. Belief in intrapsychic causes was weakly positively related to the internality dimension of the locus of control construct, beliefs in interpersonal and in societal causes were significantly positively associated with societal externality, and there was a significant positive correlation of the fatalistic externality dimension with all three subscales of the Lester-Bean Scale. CONCLUSIONS: In view of the moderate internal scale consistencies, the test-retest reliabilities can be seen as satisfying. The significant intercorrelations among attributed causes of suicide further support the hypothesis that the critical dimension of lay theories of suicide is the belief that suicide has definite causes, regardless of the type of cause. Directions for future research are discussed.

Language: en