Psychology Lab Report

 




Psychology Lab Report
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Abstract
	 Suicide is a major problem in modern societies. In order to avoid bias and transference and to better serve at-risk individuals, objective measurements of suicide risk have been devised. Questions remain regarding the superiority of implicit versus explicit measurements of suicide risk. This study consisted of Implicit Association Testing and four explicit self-reporting questionnaires which were presented to thirty-three adults presenting to an emergency room. The data was analyzed using correlation analysis and reports novel findings regarding implicit and explicit measures of suicide risk both in relation to what they are actually measuring and which is a superior predictive tool with significant implications for healthcare providers.


Keywords: Suicide, Prediction, Implicit Association testing








Introduction
Hypotheses of the study
There is a significant correlation between protective factors and previous suicide attempts
There is a significant correlation between risk factors and previous suicide attempts
There is a significant correlation between IAT score and protective factors
There is a significant correlation between IAT score and risk factors
There is a significant correlation between IAT score and previous suicide attempts.
The objectives of the study
	To investigate whether there is a significant correlation between protective factors and previous suicide attempts
	To explore whether there is a significant correlation between risk factors and previous suicide attempts
	To find out if there is a significant correlation between IAT score and protective factors
	To explore the possibility that there is a significant correlation between IAT score and risk factors
	To investigate if there is a significant correlation between IAT score and previous suicide attempts.



 Literature review
	 The fundamental goal of suicide prevention is to recognize those individuals who pose an elevated risk of attempting suicide. This early detection is complicated by a number of factors. One is myths, such as “Talking about suicide will only give someone ideas”. Another problem is a general lack of knowledge about the progression of suicide ideation and the driving causes which trigger it. Lastly, there is a general social embarrassment about learning about another person’s problems and impulses. In combination, these problems complicate early suicide detection and limit the suicidal person’s access to help.
    	   The social cost of this inability to properly detect and deter suicide is tremendous worldwide but especially in Australia. In this country alone, over 2000 people successfully commit suicide each year (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011). Despite an increasing awareness regarding this issue, two key issues have compromised successful suicide prevention. Most importantly, professional help is still failing to reach the significant majority of those who commit suicide.
                  In a survey of ten suicide prevention centers, only a third of the calls were made by people who had been considering suicide (Bertolote, 2004). In addition, physicians, teachers and clergymen all come into contact with people who are suicidal and regularly fail to identify the risk or attempt to effectively intervene once the risk is recognized (Pirkis et al., 1998). Secondly, suicide prevention personnel are confronted with a variety of non-objective emotions, and transference issues regarding the suicidal person, and may have significant difficulty quantifying the degree of risk. The healthcare professional may fail to ask pertinent questions, interpret the suicidal person’s responses in a biased fashion or fail to accurately weigh the individual risk factors in his final assessment of the risk. Therefore, an objective assessment is critical, as computers have been programmed to interact with patients presenting a variety of medical problems. 
    	                What makes suicide prediction so difficult is because the risk assessment relies almost entirely on explicit measures such as self-reporting and clinical judgment. These two items are unreliable as individuals are often inclined to lie about their suicidal intent, or not even be consciously aware of it. Therefore, to truly be able to make predictive remarks regarding suicide risk one must be able to objectively measure implicit variables (Greenwald et al, 1998). 
                            One critical area of research into implicit variables is in understanding the psychology of suicidal individuals. One potential way to study one’s psychological constructs (i.e. thoughts on death, etc.) is via the Implicit Association Test (IAT). This computer testing approach asks participants to categorize tasks via reaction association time. This activity quantifies the association of a binary contrast with an attributab