A cultural script for suicide among White men in the Mountain West Region of the United States.

The states of the Mountain West region of the United States consistently have the highest rates of suicide in the country, a pattern particularly pronounced in older White men. Although multiple constructs have been proposed to explain this long-standing pattern, including social isolation, cultural values, and psychopathology, relatively little research has been conducted to directly examine the predictive role of these risk factors and how they interact. We review the extant research for these constructs to establish (a) whether the risk factor occurs at a higher rate or is otherwise more influential in this region compared to the rest of the country and (b) whether the risk factor may account for specific effects in older White men in order to determine whether the evidence supports the role of each risk factor in understanding the high rates of suicide among older White men in this region. Using the results of this review, we then present a possible cultural script for suicide based on cultural scripts of gender and suicide theory (Canetto, 1997, 2017, 2021) that describes who dies by suicide, the methods they use, their emotions and motives, and the cultural understanding of the causes and acceptability of their suicidal behaviors within the Mountain West. This cultural script can serve as a guide for researchers investigating the complex mechanisms that account for elevated rates of suicide in this region. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Reliability and Validity of the Self-Rating Scale as a Measure of Self-Criticism.

The Self-Rating Scale (SRS; Hooley et al., 2010), a widely used measure of self-criticism in self-injury research, did not utilize conventional test development methods and has limited psychometric data. We examined the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the SRS. Participants were 295 psychology undergraduate students. The SRS demonstrated good internal consistency (α = .93), adequate test-retest reliability (r = .76), and satisfactory convergent validity with other measures of self-criticism. Convergent validity was also adequate for expected dimensions of perfectionism (socially prescribed, self-oriented, concerns about mistakes, and doubts about actions), depressive symptoms, and negative and positive affect. The SRS demonstrated adequate discriminant validity with expected constructs of perfectionism (other-oriented, personal standards, and organizational perfectionism). Although the SRS appears to be a psychometrically sound measure of self-criticism, high correlations with depression and perfectionism raise questions regarding the overlap of these constructs.

Are emotions better left unknown? Sex-specific effects of emotional awareness and daily hassles on internalizing symptoms among college students.

OBJECTIVE: Amid growing concern about internalizing disorders on college campuses, few researchers have examined the ways emotional awareness deficits may contribute to risk. We examined the effect of the interaction between daily hassles, emotional awareness, and sex on depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants: Data were collected from 196 college students (Mage = 19.6, SDage = 2.26) at a large university in June 2016. Methods: Participants completed online surveys to assess daily hassles, emotional awareness, and internalizing symptoms. Results: Daily hassles were significantly associated with internalizing symptoms, p < .01. For women, daily hassles were significantly associated with internalizing symptoms at all levels of emotional awareness, ps < .05. For men, daily hassles were significantly associated with internalizing symptoms only at high levels of emotional awareness, ps < .05. Conclusion: Future researchers could examine the context in which emotional awareness may be most beneficial to college students.