Comment on Black's (1993) article, "comparing genuine and simulated suicide notes: a new perspective".
The recent article by Stephen T. Black (1993) comparing genuine suicide notes with simulated notes is examined here. This article corrected a sampling error made in the original study by E. S. Shneidman and N. Farberow (1957), but Black's design suffers from theoretical and methodological problems that render it uninterpretable: First, no theoretical background is elaborated, and no hypotheses are offered. Second, no constructs are operationalized, and no predictions are tested. In the present article, the operational design is critiqued, and then it is suggested that the study of suicide notes in this fashion should cease.
Diamond
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Counseling Psychology Department, Temple University, Phildelphia, Pennsylvania 19122.
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Hawkins
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Soucar
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D006801:Humans; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D014956:Writing