Developmental trends and sex differences in adolescent attitudes toward suicide

This paper reports the results of two studies dealing with adolescent attitudes toward suicide. The first study compares suicide attitudes among three different age groups of adolescents, while the second study compares attitudes among ninth graders with differing levels of intelligence test scores. The major findings of the two studies are: (1) that older adolescents agree less with all reasons for suicide than do younger adolescents; (2) that adolescent females with higher IQ scores agree less with all reasons for suicide than do those with lower IQ scores; and (3) that adolescent females sympathize more with all reasons for suicide than do adolescent males. The findings are discussed according to cognitive development and sex role characteristics of adolescents.