Social Stigma Toward Suicide: Effects of Group Categorization and Attributions in Korean Health News

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of health news content on the stigma of suicide. In particular, this study tested whether the onset controllability and group categorization had a causal effect on people’s stigma toward suicide. The results indicated that stigma scores were lower for those who read an article explaining the causes of suicide as uncontrollable than for those who read an article explaining the causes as controllable. Also, lower stigma scores were observed for those who read an article depicting suicidal people as the in-group compared to those who read an article depicting suicidal people as the out-group. Furthermore, stigma scores were the highest for those exposed to an article with the out-group categorization combined with the controllable causes of suicide.

Notes

¹ To assess the difficulty of the messages, we tested the Flesch–Kincaid reading level using functions provided by Microsoft Word 2007.

² Onset controllability items: (1) The news article above states that individuals can control all the causes of suicide. (2) The news article above states that individuals should take responsibility for all the causes of suicide. (3) The news article above states that all the causes of suicide can be controlled through an individuals’ effort. Group categorization items: (1) The news article above emphasizes that suicide is a problem of a certain group. (2) The news article above emphasizes that suicide is a problem I have nothing to do with. (3) The news article above emphasizes that there exist specific groups in which suicide occurs frequently.

³ This study used the Korean version of the PHQ-9 revised by An, Seo, Lim, Shin, and Kim (2013). The original PHQ-9 was developed by Dr. Spitzer et al. (1999). The nine items for measure are as follows: (1) little interest or pleasure in doing things; (2) feeling down, depressed, or hopeless; (3) trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much; (4) feeling tired or having little energy; (5) poor appetite or overeating; (6) feeling bad about yourself or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down; (7) trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television; (8) moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed; (9) thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way.