Learning of a Classmate’s Suicide Ideation Affects Emotions When Advising the Classmate and the Helpfulness of the Advice Provided

Abstract

Objective

Suicide ideation (SI) is prevalent among college students, and suicide disclosure (SD) is critical for crisis intervention. However, students with SI may worry about stigmatizing responses to their disclosure. To better understand the mechanism of stigmatizing responses to SD, we investigated the effects of a hypothetical classmate’s SD on college students’ emotions and reasoning when providing advice to a distressed classmate.

Method

In a randomized controlled experiment, students wrote advice to a hypothetical classmate who recently failed in his pursuit of a romantic relationship with a peer. The experimental/control group also learned he wanted to either commit suicide/quit school. When typing the advice, participants’ facial expressions were recorded and analyzed by Facereader7.1. After advising, participants reported their sadness, joy, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust when advising. Finally, trained coders coded the common themes of their advice and rated the wise reasoning involved. Additionally, two experts in suicide prevention rated the helpfulness of their advice for the classmate.

Results

The experimental group showed significantly fewer facial expressions of happiness, reported higher sadness and fear, provided less helpful advice, and mentioned “confronting reality” less during advising. The difference in disgust and wise reasoning was nonsignificant.

Conclusion

Learning of a classmate’s SI may increase fear and sadness among recipients and reduce the helpfulness of their advice. Increased psychoeducation for students that focuses on improving emotional regulation (especially facial expressions) during SI may reduce the stigma surrounding SI and prevent perceived burdensomeness among individuals with SI after SD.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Hearing a peer’s SI reduced listeners’ happiness and increased sadness and fear.

• Listeners’ disgust did not change significantly after learning of a classmate’s SI.

• Learning of a classmate’s SI reduced the helpfulness of listeners’ advice.

Keywords:

• Advice-giving
• crisis intervention
• emotion
• suicide disclosure
• suicide ideation

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors thank Dr. Chuanpeng Hu, Nanjing Normal University, for his advice on data analysis.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors report that there are no competing interests to declare.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

All the original data and analysis scripts are available at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/7548h/files/?view_only=247c14566fb642369be82b79277c0ebe.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chao S. Hu

Chao S. Hu, PhD, Department of Medical Humanities, School of Humanities, Southeast University, Nanjing, China, Department of Psychology, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.

Haotian Zhang

Mengyuan Liu, BA, Department of Medical Humanities, School of Humanities, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.

Lindsey A. Short

Haotian Zhang, MA, Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.

Mengyuan Liu

Lindsey A. Short, PhD, Department of Psychology, Redeemer University, Ancaster, Canada.

Chengli Huang

Chengli Huang, MA, School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.

Zhijian Liang

Zhijian Liang, PhD, Chenggong Hospital, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.

Ying Yang

Ying Yang, PhD, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China, Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Manxia Huang

Manxia Huang, PhD, Research Center for Psychological and Health Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.

Dong Xie

Dong Xie, PhD, Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA, USA.