Collegiate Attitudes Toward Suicide: New Zealand and United States

Attitudes toward suicide, as assessed by the Suicide Opinion Questionnaire were evaluated in samples of New Zealand and United States college students. Substantial differences were found, with New Zealand students attitudinally perceiving to a greater degree a relationship between suicide and mental illness, perceiving suicide as less serious, agreeing with the right to take one’s life, and seeing suicide in a more religious context and as a less impulsive, less “normal”, and more moral action.