Ageism and sexism in suicide attitudes

Abstract

This study was designed to measure attitudes toward suicide by sex and age. The SAVE-A scale was used to measure attitudes toward suicidal adolescents. A new inventory (the SAVE-L scale) was created to measure attitudes toward elderly suicidal people. The SAVE-L scale was found to possess good levels of internal consistency, to correlate in the expected direction with two concurrent validity measures and to break into the same three unitary factors found for the SAVE-A scale: sympathy, empathy, and agreement. Significant differences were found on each factor. Old suicidal females received the least sympathy from all age and sex subjects while young females received the most. With the exception of old female subjects, who empathized the most with old female target figures, the same pattern emerged on the factor of empathy. All subject groups showed higher agreement with suicide attempts for old females than for any other target group. The suggestion is made that devaluing of elderly females might be a result of their relatively large numbers compared to elderly males, an unconscious reaction to old females' inability to reproduce the species, or a reflection of a general devaluing of female lives, which may become more pronounced in old age. Discussion of the results also suggests that age and sex are important subject variables to researchers of suicide attitudes.

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