Beliefs about suicide prevention by excluding the phenomenon versus the person: the role of cultural orientation, attitudes towards suicide, and social reactions to suicidal persons in Turkish university students

Abstract

Based on their cultural orientation, people display approving/disapproving attitudes to suicide/suicidal persons that may be seen as either phenomenon excluding or person excluding. We tested whether cultural value orientations and suicidal attitudes were related to beliefs in the efficacy of excluding the phenomenon versus the person for preventing suicide. A total of 857 Turkish university students responded to a survey that include measures of cultural orientation, prevention beliefs related to phenomenon exclusion and person exclusion, and suicide related attitudes. While participants with an individualistic value orientation reported person exclusion to be more effective in preventing suicide, participants with a collectivistic orientation believed phenomenon exclusion to be more effective. Permissive attitudes to suicide were inversely related to beliefs in the effectiveness of phenomenon exclusion but positively to beliefs in the effectiveness of person exclusion for preventing suicide, but the magnitude of the relationships was low. While phenomenon exclusion was positively related to the social acceptance of and helping for a suicidal peer, the opposite was true for person exclusion prevention beliefs (The magnitude of the relationships was low to medium). Participants who attempted suicide believed less in the efficacy of phenomenon exclusion in preventing suicide than those who did not report any suicide attempts. Our findings imply that culture-sensitive prevention efforts in contexts and individuals with an individualistic value orientation may target reducing the stigma surrounding suicidal persons, but in contexts and individuals with a collectivistic value orientation, they may target decreasing the stigma surrounding the phenomenon of suicide itself.