Profiles of suicidal individuals: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive characteristics

Abstract

BACKGROUND This study aimed to analyze behavioral, emotional, and cognitive characteristics that influence varieties of suicide. The theoretical framework drew on three perspectives: philosophical analyses of the purposes of suicide, sociological examinations its processes of propagation, and psychological analyses exploring its mechanisms through personal characteristics. These perspectives served as foundational resources for the study's design and for constructing a questionnaire used in the experimental analysis. PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE A questionnaire was constructed to manipulate two key variables: the type of suicidal purpose (public, mixed, or private) and the level of suicidal activation (active or passive), resulting in six hypothetical suicide scenarios, which allowed participants to observe the simulated cases of suicidal behavior. Participants (N = 205) were asked to respond to 18 items, categorized by three psychological characteristics across the six scenarios, using a 7-point Likert scale. RESULTS Significant variations were observed across the three types of suicidal purposes and the two activation levels. The patterns differed depending on the psychological characteristics, showing interaction between the two variables. Overall, suicides driven by private purposes showed higher behavioral propensity than those driven by public purposes. Emotional and behavioral responses were higher than cognitive ones, while cognitive activation was higher in public-purpose suicides. CONCLUSIONS The findings indicate that elevated emotional responses tend readily to transfer into suicidal behaviors. Behavioral propensity appears slightly lower in public-purpose suicides, which require stronger cognitive justification. These results suggest that suicide processes can be more precisely explained by considering psychological characteristics, while philosophical skepticism and sociological anomie have left certain ambiguities unresolved. Future research is encouraged to apply this design across diverse cultural contexts and to incorporate actual suicide cases to further validate the proposed model.