Suicidal Ideation and Risky Behavior are Related through Impulsivity and Low Wish to Live

Abstract

Objective

Numerous studies have found support for the relationship between suicide and risky behavior. However, few studies have examined factors that may help explain the relationship between suicidal ideation (SI) and risky behavior. This preregistered study examined the relationship between SI and risky behavior and whether there is an indirect relationship through hopelessness, impulsivity, and low wish to live. These factors were selected due to their relationships with both SI and risky behavior.

Methods

Participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk completed measures of SI, risky behavior, hopelessness, impulsivity, and wish to live. Consistent with our preregistered methods, we analyzed data from 180 participants with valid data. Indirect effects were evaluated via bootstrapping with 5000 resamples of the a path x b path product.

Results

Consistent with prior work, we found a significant positive association between SI and frequency of risky behavior (r = .49). We found significant indirect effects of SI on risky behavior through impulsivity and wish to live but not through hopelessness.

Conclusion

SI and risky behavior are associated with each other through impulsivity and wish to live. Though future longitudinal research is needed to determine causality, this has important implications for models of suicidal thoughts and behaviors and their relationship with risky behavior. The potential of future orientation to explain the results is discussed.

Keywords:

• Future orientation
• hopelessness
• impulsivity
• risky behavior
• suicidal ideation
• wish to live

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the members of the Behavior, Affect, and Thinking Laboratory at Oklahoma State University for their support throughout this project.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Data used in the preparation of this manuscript are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Notes

1 We do not suggest a specific direction for the suicidal ideation—risky behavior relationship, we simply use this order throughout the manuscript for consistency and clarity.

2 The direction and significance of the results with the full 284 valid participants is identical to the results with the first 180 valid participants.

3 Unstandardized ab path coefficients are used to evaluate the statistical significance of the indirect effect (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). We provide the confidence interval for the completely standardized coefficients to allow comparison between the magnitude of the effects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Logan M. Smith

Logan M. Smith, Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

Tony T. Wells

Tony T. Wells, Department of Psychology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA.