Suicidality and Agency: The Reasons for Living Inventory by M. Linehan

Abstract

Agency, or subjectivity is an important concept in personality psychology, but this phenomenon is less studied in suicidology. During the adaptation of the M. Linehan inventory Reasons for Living we proposed to look at the inventory through the lens of this construct. The study had two samples: students, N=490 (341 females, aged 17—28 (19.3±1.2)), and suicidal patients N=146 (105 females, aged 16—48 (23.1±5.9)). The structure of the Russian version of the inventory was studied with the IRT-model, which showed that all items of the inventory agree acceptably with the model. But three items were excluded, as they didn’t satisfy the criterion of measured invariance. The indices of reliability ranged from .74 to .93 according to Cronbach’s α, and from .73 to .92 according to IRT-reliability. The analysis of construct validity showed that the most benign factors are the scales Survival and Coping Beliefs and Child-Related Concerns, which meet the criteria of inner motivation and regulation to the greatest extent, while the factor Fear of Suicide didn’t prove itself as a protective factor, as it correlated positively with the factors of suicidal risk. Factors Responsibility to Family and Moral Objections pertain to internal motivation, while Fear of Social Disapproval corresponds more to external regulation. Thus, the Reasons for Living inventory passed a successful adaptation and can be used for research purposes and in clinical practice, and indirectly allows the researcher to assess the agency of a respondent.