Effects of Personal and Situational Factors on Attitudes Toward Suicide

Studied whether attitudes on suicide would be affected by the individual’s personal characteristics & the nature of the situation. It was hypothesized that suicide would be judged more or less “justifiable” depending on characteristics of the crisis confronting the suicidal person as well as perception of the person’s general utility to society as a whole. Results show that the personal characteristics of the suicidal individual made little difference but that the nature of the crisis did.