The Influence of Media on the Stigma of Suicide when a Postsecondary Student Dies by Suicide

Abstract

This study investigated whether media articles from a postsecondary institution could influence students’ stigma toward suicide after a student dies by suicide. Undergraduate participants (N = 425) read a fictitious scenario about a student suicide and were randomly assigned to a control article (no mention of the suicide) or one of three intervention articles that acknowledged the suicide and included a discussion with a psychologist, a friend of the decedent, or a suicide survivor. The stigma toward suicide survivors, particularly stereotypes, was significantly less after the three intervention articles compared to the control. No differences were found between the intervention articles or regarding the stigma toward suicide decedents. Reduced stigma toward survivors indicates that acknowledging a suicide, when possible, should be considered.

Keywords:

• Mass-media interventions
• postsecondary context
• stereotypes
• suicide stigma
• stigma reduction

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge everyone at the University of Calgary who made this work possible, which includes Emily Bernier, the team of research assistants, and the staff and faculty with the Campus Mental Health Strategy and Student Wellness Services.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All NCHA percentages for Canadian and American results are presented respectively.

2 This article describes the primary research objective of a master’s thesis. Those interested in the complete project can see Lindsay (2020; unpublished master’s thesis).

3 This research question and hypotheses were pre-registered with AsPredicted (#31517) as part of the larger master thesis. A secondary research question (Does intergroup anxiety (H2a), empathy (H2b), and modern prejudice (H2c) mediate the relationship between media article interventions and stigma?) was also explored, but found null effects (i.e., no support for a mediation model; see Lindsay, 2020).

4 Due to a technical error in the online survey platform, three of the items in this measure were not collected from participants, so only 41 items were able to be used for this study.

5 Several other measures and open-ended questions were also asked to the participants during the data collection, but were not used for the research question of this article.

6 A total of 24 participants were detected as univariate outliers (i.e., > 3 SD from the mean; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013) on at least one measure; these were not extreme outliers, so they were retained for analyses, but for thoroughness, all analyses were run without the outliers as well, and no differences were observed in the significance testing results.

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of a master’s thesis project of the first author, who was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Canadian Graduate Scholarship – Master’s (CGS-M). The research itself was unfunded.

Notes on contributors

Brittany L. Lindsay

Brittany L. Lindsay, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada;

Andrew C. H. Szeto

Andrew C. H. Szeto, Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada; Office of the Provost, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada; Mental Health Commission of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.