Investigating Responses to Suicide Images

Abstract

Within suicide science, approach-driven responses to suicide images (i.e., depictions of staged suicide attempts) have been associated with prior suicidal thoughts and behaviours (STBs). Morbid curiosity refers to curiosity about unpleasant or threatening phenomena involving death, violence, or harm, and could also predict approach-driven responses to suicide images. Yet, studies on responses to suicide images have not considered individual differences in trait morbid curiosity and additionally, no work has systematically investigated the extent to which images accurately represent the construct of suicide. To address these empirical gaps, in Study 1, I examined participant appraisals of how much images looked like someone “trying to kill themselves on purpose or who did kill themselves on purpose” (i.e., suicide ratings). Suicide images demonstrated construct validity at image and aggregate levels. Further, suicide images looked more like suicide than pleasant, neutral, and interpersonal violence images, and suicide ratings of suicide images were unrelated to STB history. Suicide ratings were higher for suicide images without gore compared to those with gore and for suicide images depicting methods with the highest lethality epidemiologically (hanging, poisoning, firearm, cutting) compared to methods overall. In Study 2, I tested whether trait morbid curiosity predicted intrigue ratings of suicide images and sustained attention on suicide images and whether these effects were moderated by STB history. Trait morbid curiosity was positively associated with intrigue ratings and sustained attention, but STB history did not moderate these effects. My results could improve the validity of experimental methods for studying STBs, and advance understanding of morbid curiosity’s role in responses to suicide images, as well as its relationship with suicide-relevant constructs.