Suicide Ideation and Creative Problem Solving

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Suicide Ideation and Creative Problem Solving Wayne Mraz and Ma¡k A. Runco, PhD This investigation utili'ed the recent technology for the sssessment of creati'ity to exa...'i¡e the association bet*'een problem solving and suicide ideation. Th¡ee kj¡ds of problenfinding and -solring tasks were admi¡jstered to 8l (nonclinical) coüege students. One of these tasks assesses 'problem generation'and was expected to be particularly inform,a. tive. given that individuals considering suicide rnay perceive roany problems but find few solutions. Results supported this expectatiou: hoblem generation scores sere signjficantly correlated sith suicide ideation, even after stress was statistically controlJed. A sec. ondary analysis suggested that the originality and fleibility of solutíons may bt influenced by the particular problem a¡ i¡diridual faces.

l5 most commoD causes of death an. nually account for 867o of the 2.155,000 deaths in the U.S. (Haub, l99ll. Diseases ol the hea¡t a¡e most cour¡non (app, orimately 296 deaths per 100,000 individu. alsl, {th maliglant neoplasms second

The

(2001,

ce. \.ovascula¡ diseases third

(59),

a,cidents (381, pneumonia and in(301, and diabeæs (19). Suicide is fluenza ' eighth - the list (13 per 100,0001. 'lltis puts it ahr.,d of bomicide, AIDS, and atherosclerosis. Although the overall rat¿ of de¡th is decreasing, the rat¿ of suicide h¡s continued to rise. For example, the U.S. and then

Bu¡eau of Census reported that suicide rose by 100% between 1950 and 1988 (U.S. Bu¡eau of Lhe Census, lg89l.

Psychological erplanat.ions of suicide often focus on depression, stress, and problem solving. hrt simply, poor prob lem solvers may become depressed, expe rience hopelessness. and think about sui. cide when they a e faced with high levels ofstress. Resear , is largely supportive of this argument 8., Dixon, Heppner, & Anderson, l99l; Mcl,eavey, Daly, Murray, O'Riordan, & Taylor, Ig87; Patsio kas. Clum. & Luscomb. l9?9; Schott¿ &

Clum, 19871. Dixon et al., for example, fou¡d evidenæ in two samples of inLroductory psychology students that life sLress and self.appnised (ineffectivel problem solving were strongly linked nìth higher levels of hopelessness ü { suicide ide ation.

Most resea¡ch in this 8r€â rê-;s oo the Alæ¡naæ Uses t¿st. I comrnoD test of dÈ uetgent thínkíng. Patsiokas '' d. (1979), for instar¡ce, ¡lmini5þ¡sd the L ¡s test to suicide attcmpters and a nonsuicidal psl'chiatric control group. The individuals in the ñrst group had previously performed acts of self.i¡flictcd, liféthreaæning be havior. Patsiùas et al. focused on cognitive rigidity, field dependence, and cognitive impulsivity, and for this reason they used the Embcdded Figures Test a¡d the Matching pernili¡¡' Figures Test, as well as Alt¡rnate Uses. The results sr¡pport€d the prediction that suicide ideators a¡e cognitively rigid. In support of tbe pr ,blem-solving view, the subject gor¡p t' :t had previously attempted suicidehai Cnificantly lower scores than the control group on the Alternate Uses Tel. There rvere no signfüant differences in field de

Suicide and

LifeTlueat¡ni¡¡Eehrvior, Vol 2{lll. Sprine l99l O 199{ The Auric¡n Association ol Suicidology

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were included and compared because of ea¡lier resea¡ch (reviewed by Runco, in press'af sho*'ing that, different divergent

thinking problems elicit significantly dif. ferent scores, both in coDtent ar¡d in sheer quantity. 1'h¡ee ideational dimensions (i.e., fìuency, originality, and flexibility) were used for such comparisons. This was critical because of the th¡ee indices, flexibilty is the most closely tied to adaptive thinking (Richa¡ds, 1990) a¡d is thought to allow individuals to avoid rigidity and fixity (Runco, lg85: Runco & Okuda, r

99l l.

The second task in this battery assesses problem generation, and the thi¡d assesses an individual's ability t¡ select and solve a workable problem. These too a¡e real-world tasks, but they tale problem findíng into account. hoblem finding may be more important for creative thinking thaa problem solving {Csikszentmihalyi, & Getzels, l97l; Runco, in press-cl. Problem finding-and b particular the problem generation task -may be particularly useful in studies of suicide ideation. This is because lhe problem generation task only asks that the respondent find. recognÞe, or construct problems-no so lutions a¡e required. Perhaps i¡dividuals considering zuicide a¡e able to construct or discover problems. but a¡e unable to find solutions. Because suicide ideation undoubtedly reflects more than inefficient problem solving, three other measures were ¿dminist¡red in this project. One was Domino's (19881 Suicide Opinion Quqstionnaire (SOQl. The other two focused on perceived stress. Perceived stress was assessed in this investigation rather than life events because it avoids assumptions about stress as an inevitable reaction to potentially stressful life events. The last unique aspect of this study involved the treatment of the data. Unlike most ea¡Uer resea¡ch, data from all mea' sures were coded as conLinuous, thus al'

lo*'ing muJtiple regression analyses

rather than simple group comparisons. This allowed us to avoid the loss of daÈa tha! resulLs from dichotomÞing into groups (Cohen & Cohen, 19751.

SUIC¡DE AND LIfE.TI{REATEIi ¡NG BE HAv IOP

lìtETHOD

Participants Six questionnai¡es and a packet containing the problem-solving tasks were admjn istered to 8l (29 mdes. and 52 females) universi0y students from introduclion Lo psychology ùd child development dasses The students were given credit for partici. pating in this investigation. The mean age of the participanLs was 21, with a range of l8 to 46 I'ears. Self.reports indicated that 4 studenùs had previously attempted sui cide, and ? were presently in counseling for unspecified reasons. The frequency o: suicide ideation is, of cou¡se, i¡dicat¿d br

the participants'responses to the

ques

tionnai¡es.

Measu¡es

The divergent thi¡¡king tasks a¡e de scribcd above, and additional informatior can be found in Chand and Runco (1992)

Recall .:"re that two kinds of problemr were give,, One set (received by a randomly selec¿¿d subgroup. n = {0}, pre sent¿d problems of

r relatively irurocuour

nature (e.., about homework). The other set (given t^¡ ¡ll other subjects. n = 4 I ¡sked someçhat sensitive questions (e.9., solutions to an unplanned pregnanc)'1. AU presented problems ¡nd were given flu

fleribility scores. The problem generation tasks were scoreci the sarne way. The last two tasks coulc ency, originality. and

only be scored for fluency because re sponses could not be compared: each student solved problems of his or her oq¡ de sign. The Scale for Suicide ldeation (BSSI Beck, Kovacs, & ìÀ'eissman, 19791 as sesses conscious s'.:idal ínt¿nt, focusing

on selfdestructiv¡: thoughts or desi¡es Each of the 19 it¿ms has three responst opÈions (i.e., 0-21. A total score is used, with a range from 0 to E. Beck et al. (19?9 reportcd a¡ int¿rrater reliability of .83. T'lre Suicide Ideation Scaje (SIS

- Rudd, is a self.report tÌ¡at contains lC questions, each witå five options (e.9.. i = D€v€rr 5 = always or a gTeat many 19891

ÀtRAZ AliD

{l

Rulico

timesl. The questions concern suicidal thoughts or behaviors that may have oc' cuned in the past year. Several questions n'ere reworded to be consistenl. r'ith the format of (e.g.,

"l

t"he

other measures used herein

have myself was I have thoug

The SIS has a high int¿rnal reliabilit¡' (.901, and has been used s'ith college stu' dents in a number of studies. The Hopelessness Scale (Beck, \\'eiss' man, [æst¡¡, & T.rexjer, l9?41 measures expectations of negative events. It con' tains 20 true (l pointl or false (0 pointsl ouestions and has a lange of scores be tween 0 and 20. Beck et al. reportcd an in' t¿rnal consistcncy (reliabilit)'l of .93. The Suicide Opinion Questionnaire (SOQ -Domino, 19861 contains 100 itcms about attitudes and opinions torra¡d sui' cide, and ? it¿ms concerning demograph' ics. Response options range from strongl¡' agree (l I to stron

eight

n'ork and school. n'ork dema¡ds inkrfer' ing n'ith stud¡'time. problems n'ith room' mates, and financial diffioilties. The indi' vidual it¿ms a¡e sco¡ed by indicating how stressful the¡'are to the student, n'ith 0 i¡' dicating no stress at all u¡d 3 indicating extreme stress. Five SSI ¡iubscales were used, and as in Dobson and ltlet¡alfe (1963), the subscales contained most but not all of the SSI items. (Dobson and ltlet' calfe identified thei¡ th¡ee subscales c'ith a factor anal¡'sis.l The ñ¡st subscaleDobson and I\leæalfe's factor I -focused on "getting donn to s'orlt'{iæms l, ?, 10. 12,24, and 301. The second subscale- fac'

tor 5 in Dobson and lrfet¡¡lle-focused on "future goals" (it¿ms {, l{, and 2ll. The third-Dobson and Àfet¡dfe's factor 6focused on -demands of ¡c¿demic life' (items I l, 19. and 281. the lourth subscale contained the six guestions from Hamil' ton and Fagot (lgE8l. a¡d the last con' tained the four added quætions. An SIS totaj score n'as also c¿lculat¿d.

subscales:

Die.

Religion. lrlentaj lllness.

Ev¡l. The Perceived Stress Scale IPSS

Procedure

- Co

The mat¿¡i:,ls were dist¡ibut¿d to the par'

ticipants in truee paclets. Tle investiga' tors fi¡st read general instructions and ex' plicitly informed the prrticipants tbat erperienced has ahe believes that he or graded le¡ve at any tine during the could ¡ they witJr it¡ms, l{ stress. It contains (never) per¡d. The fi¡st prclet (cont¿in' to { testing 0 from rEnging system scoring (verl' ofænl. The sum of the questions ing the six divergent thLùing tasksl was gives a perceived stress score, n'ith a then distributed. Every otber student was iange of 0-52. Cohen et al. report¿d an given the new divergent thinking tcsts. Afær completing tbe ñ¡st paclet, stu' alpha reliability of .85. were to return ¡t to the experi' dents Stress the Student As the name implies, He then gave erch the second menter. (SSII desi¡rred was specifically InvenLory (containing the BSSI and the SSll. packeü form si¡th The students'stress. to assess of the SSt contained 30 items (Dobson & Again after compllting lùe pachet. stu' Àletcaife, lg83l, a¡rd l0 items we¡e added dents rrere to te!.,r¡r¡ it to tìe erperi' to the present version. Six of these were menter, and he gs"r each the last packet talrocess. Creonr.ir¡.Rcseo¡ch Jour nol J.156-165. Goodwi¡, F. X.. & Jamison. N. R.09901. Monic de. prcssir'r illness - Iten Yo¡l¡: Orford Uuiversit¡. Fl¡ch. F. ll990l.

P¡ess.

H¡¡rilton. S.. t FaSrot, B. l¡988t. Cl¡ronic Dtress !ìd coping rr¡'les: A comparison of o¡le ar¡d female undergrrdu rte s - J ou mo ! o I Pe r sonoli t ¡' and Soc ial Ps¡.cÀolog¡. 5: El 9-823. Haut,. C. \'. ll99l l- Population andpopulation moì.è s¡enrs. lnronn ica Bool, ol the ltoi çp. 2Zt. 2gO2tll. Cìicrgo. IL: Britannic¡.

Rjcbuds. R. (19901. Ever¡.da¡. oe¡tiritr., cmi crtrtivity, a¡d health: Afi¿rvier. ol C&j ¡ncc¡ ¡rrcs on creativir¡. and he¡lth. €Þon¿,ity ilas? JounuL J,300-326. Rothenberg. 4.. & Hauso¡n. C. lt9?61. Thc rre

if¡ guesnon. Du¡h¡rn, liC: Dule Universitr. Þ Rudd, D. ll989l. The prer.dence ol ¡ul'cide íde¡

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