Lay theories of suicide: test-restest reliability and further validation of lester and bean's attribution of causes to suicide scale.
BACKGROUND
Lay theories on abnormal behavior and mental disorders have been growing as a field recently. Lester and Bean have contributed to these endeavors by developing the Lester and Bean Attribution of Causes to Suicides Scale (1992), an instrument that gauges beliefs concerning the causes of suicidal behavior (intrapsychic, interpersonal, and societal causes).


OBJECTIVE
To provide test-retest reliability figures (two-month interval) and to further validate the scale.


METHODS
The instrument was administered to 155 Austrian psychology undergraduates. Test-retest reliabilities, scale intercorrelations, and correlations with locus of control, among others, were ascertained.


RESULTS
Test-retest reliabilities amounted to r = 0.67 for intrapsychic, 0.53 for interpersonal, and 0.56 for societal causes, and to 0.59 for the total scale (all ps < 0.001). All three subscales were, as previously observed, significantly positively intercorrelated. Belief in intrapsychic causes was weakly positively related to the internality dimension of the locus of control construct, beliefs in interpersonal and in societal causes were significantly positively associated with societal externality, and there was a significant positive correlation of the fatalistic externality dimension with all three subscales of the Lester-Bean Scale.


CONCLUSIONS
In view of the moderate internal scale consistencies, the test-retest reliabilities can be seen as satisfying. The significant intercorrelations among attributed causes of suicide further support the hypothesis that the critical dimension of lay theories of suicide is the belief that suicide has definite causes, regardless of the type of cause. Directions for future research are discussed.
Loibl
Lisa Mariella
LM
Department of Basic Psychological Research, School of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria. lisa.loibl@univie.ac.at
Tran
Ulrich S
US
Hirner
Alexander
A
Voracek
Martin
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001317:Austria; D015984:Causality; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011639:Public Opinion; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires