College Students' Perceptions of Suicide: The Role of Empathy on Attitudes, Evaluation, and Responsiveness

Mueller, Michaele A.; Waas, Gregory A.

doi:10.1080/074811802753594709

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…However, females were more likely to express their intentions to engage in certain actions, such as exploring the problem of their depressed peer and encouraging/helping them to get informal help. This greater propensity among female undergraduates to engage in person-centred and social-network-related approaches may be a by-product of gender-related differences, where females show greater confidence to support a friend with mental health problems, have higher levels of empathy and greater skills to provide emotional support [24, 67, 68]. …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helping intentions of undergraduates towards their depressed peers: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka

et al. 2017

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BackgroundDespite showing high rates of depression, university students prefer to seek assistance for their depression from informal sources, such as their friends, rather than seeking professional assistance. Therefore, the helping behaviours of those who provide informal help to these students need examination. This study examines the helping intentions of undergraduates in Sri Lanka towards their depressed peers and the correlates of their helping intentions.MethodThe undergraduates were presented with a vignette of a hypothetical depressed undergraduate. A total of 4442 undergraduates responded to an open-ended question about how the person in the vignette should be helped if this person was someone they knew well. Their responses were coded in reference to established mental health first aid guidelines. Logistic and linear regression models were used to examine the predictors of their helping intentions.ResultsThe undergraduates’ most common helping intentions were to listen/talk and support their peer. Only around a third considered the need for professional help. The overall quality of their helping intentions was poor, but better among those who recognised the problem as depression and those who had less stigmatising attitudes. There was some evidence that certain helping intentions of the undergraduates which were person-oriented or social network-related were better among females, those in higher years of study and among certain non-medical student groups. Intentions to encourage professional help were better among those who recognised the problem, but poorer among those with personal experiences of this problem and among those who perceived this problem to be a weakness and not a sickness.ConclusionsAlthough the undergraduates may attempt to support their distressed peers, they may not show appropriate helping actions and may not encourage the use of professional assistance. Hence, they need to be educated on how best to respond to their distressed peers. Those with higher levels of stigma and inability to recognise the problem may be at greater risk of showing poorer helping responses towards their distressed peers.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-017-1192-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helping intentions of undergraduates towards their depressed peers: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka

et al. 2017

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“…Parental use of inductive discipline styles (for example, explaining the effect the child's misbehavior has on others) was positively related to high levels of empathy, supportive of Krevans and Gibbs' (1996) findings that parents who use high levels of induction also have children who experience higher levels of empathy and prosocial behavior. Mueller and Waas (2002) examined the role of empathy in perception of and responsiveness toward a hypothetical friend exhibiting symptoms associated with suicide risk. Mueller and Waas hypothesized that level of empathy would be an important mediating factor in a college student's evaluation of a behavior's seriousness as well as the response he/she would take if confronted by such behaviors in a friend.…”

Section: Empathy and Cognitive Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empathy among college students and criminal justice majors: Identifying predispositional traits and the role of education

Courtright¹,

Mackey²,

Packard³

2005

Journal of Criminal Justice Education

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This paper examines empathy among a purposive sample (N = 633) of college and university students in the northeastern United States. Mehrabian's Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) was used to measure empathy levels among criminal justice (CJ) and other majors. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to compare scale and item means across gender, school size and type, grade level, age, and other variables. The authors also examine the relationship in the sample between empathy and attitudes toward punitiveness. Results indicate that male CJ majors possess the lowest levels of empathy, followed by males of other majors, female CJ majors and females majoring in other disciplines. Gender, major, and grade/class level were found to be important in predicting or influencing empathy. Possible explanations for these differences in empathy are offered and the pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed.The purpose of this exploratory study is to assess the extent of differences, if any, between criminal justice (CJ) majors and other college majors in empathy levels. The study reflects the authors' shared concern about an issue confronting both CJ pedagogy and the administration of justice in the future. From the authors' experiences of teaching a variety of courses at different institutions to various majors, our observations led us to believe that CJ majors are more punitive in their attitudes and less empathic toward offenders than are students in other (i.e., non-CJ) majors, and that the former also *An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November 1999, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 126COURTRIGHT, MACKEY, AND PACKARD differ in their beliefs regarding what constitutes fair and equitable punishment for criminal offenders.Our mutual observations regarding a tendency toward punitiveness and reduced empathy among CJ majors became apparent during a discussion of student reactions to an assignment common to the first and second authors' courses. John Irwin's (1985) The Jail was used in both courses to illustrate the view that criminal justice interventions may not always provide a better solution for the individual offender and may also lead to the continuation and escalation of criminality by further isolating the offender from society, weakening his or her bonds to family, friends, and work. Students in these courses were sometimes not only unreceptive to the ideas put forth by Irwin, but some of them displayed open hostility to his ideas. These student reactions were often similar when discussions centered on other disadvantaged populations (e.g., indigent persons, AIDS victims, victims in general, etc.). In short, we came to believe that a substantial number of our students lacked the ability to empathize with offenders and other disadvantaged populations. Negative comments were not confined solely to the work of Irwin but we...

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“…Most suicide prevention studies targeted at college students focus on suicidal ideation and risk factors (Van Orden et al, 2008;Westefeld et al, 2005), knowledge about available campus resources (Westefeld et al, 2005), and perceptions and knowledge of suicide (Mueller & Waas, 2002). These programs target the suicidal college student, and, as such, are missing an important audience: college students' peers.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire

2013

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Three studies resulted in the Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire. College students (ns = 172, 253, and 367) completed an online questionnaire based on theory of planned behavior constructs regarding suicide intervention. Exploratory factor analysis produced 10 factors: intervening will affect the suicidal person and the participant; important others recommend seeking help, suggesting the suicidal person see a counselor, and talking to the suicidal person; interpersonal and intervention self-efficacy; and intention to seek outside help, encourage to seek outside help, and recognize a need for action. The Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire assesses college students' willingness to intervene when someone is suicidal.

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College Students' Perceptions of Suicide: The Role of Empathy on Attitudes, Evaluation, and Responsiveness

Cited by 25 publications

References 24 publications

Helping intentions of undergraduates towards their depressed peers: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka

Helping intentions of undergraduates towards their depressed peers: a cross-sectional study in Sri Lanka

Empathy among college students and criminal justice majors: Identifying predispositional traits and the role of education

The Willingness to Intervene Against Suicide Questionnaire

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