The Life Attitudes Schedule: A Scale to Assess Adolescent Life‐Enhancing and Life‐Threatening Behaviors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure suicidal and other risk‐taking behaviors, the Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS), and to test a theoretical model that postulates a single domain of behaviors to which all life‐threatening and life‐enhancing behaviors belong. The LAS was developed and piloted on 1539 high school students and young adults. The schedule measures four different content categories: death related, health related, injury related, and self‐related. Each content category includes an equal number of items designed to assess actions, thoughts, and feelings. Consistent with the theoretical model, the LAS includes positive (life‐enhancing) and negative (life‐threatening) behaviors. In this paper we present psychometric information for the LAS. The results are interpreted as providing support for a broad, bipolar conceptualization of suicidal and other risk‐taking behavior that encompasses life‐threatening and life‐enhancing behaviors.