Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 800,000 people die by suicide each year, and estimates of 20 times this number make suicide attempts. Prejudice/stereotyping can also be extremely damaging to large groups of individuals. Importantly, these behaviors have a profound societal cost and can severely impact families and communities. However, to change these behaviors, it is crucial that we precisely know the mental associations (internal psychological factors) and environmental factors (external) that can exacerbate or ameliorate these behaviors. One of the primary goals of this fellowship was to determine whether a weakened association between “Me” and “Life”, a stronger association between “Me” and “Death”, or both these associations are crucial for differentiating suicide attempters from non-attempters.
We showed that a weakened association between “Me = Life” is more strongly predictive of having a history of suicidal attempts than is a stronger association between “Me = Death/Suicide.” However, among those who previously attempted suicide, a strengthened association between “Me = Death” is more strongly predictive of the recency (and frequency) of a suicide attempt. These results suggest that decomposing traditional IAT D-scores can offer new insights into the mental associations that may underlie clinical phenomena and may help to improve the prediction, and ultimately the prevention, of these clinical outcomes. We are now applying this new technique to an in-patient clinical sample (N > 2,000) and to an adolescent sample gathered at ER wards (N > 6,000) to determine whether it can prospectively predict completed suicide/attempts.
Racial tensions in the U.S. have recently increased, and understanding both individual and environmental factors that relate to negative intergroup relations are important for implementing systemic societal changes. Consistent with the parasite-stress hypothesis, we show that both White individuals (N > 770,000) and Black individuals (N > 150,000) living in U.S. states in which disease rates are higher display increased implicit (automatic) and explicit (conscious) racial prejudice. These findings remained robust even after accounting for a whole host of individual and environmental factors. Furthermore, white individuals with high germ aversion tendencies were especially prejudiced when reminded of viruses/diseases/infections. These findings could also account for the rise in discrimination, targeting minority groups in the U.S. (e.g. Asian or Black Americans) since the COVID-19 outbreak. This research may also generalize to other countries where intergroup tensions are apparent.
Conclusions of the action: Recent analysis showed that suicidal thoughts are highest in December, preceding the peak of suicidal behavior in late spring and early summer. Suicidal thoughts are highest during the early hours, peaking around 4 am. These findings have implications for clinicians in their risk assessment of potential suicide attempts for patients at risk and policy-makers regarding the allocation of protective services. I am now following up on this study to test the impact that COVID-19 had on suicidal thoughts. Preliminary results suggest that COVID-19 did not have any discernable impact on explicit and implicit suicidal cognitions.
