Gender and History of Suicidality: Are These Factors Related to U.S. College Students’ Current Suicidal Thoughts,Feelings, and Actions?

Gender and history of suicidality (HS vs. NoHS) were related to current symptoms of depression, reasons for living, and reports of self-destructive and life-threatening behavior in a college student sample. Overall, college men reported engaging in more life-threatening and potentially suicidal behavior than college women on the Life Attitudes Schedule (LAS). No gender effects were obtained on the symptoms of depression and reasons for living measures. Results suggest that the LAS may be a particularly effective way to identify college students at risk for self-destructive and suicidal behavior. As expected, HS individuals were more depressed, had fewer reasons for living, and reported engaging in more current suicidal and life-threatening behavior than NoHS participants. However, gender and history of suicidality were found to interact. NoHS women reported avoiding a variety of injury-producing and health-diminishing behaviors that were common for all other groups of college students. Meanwhile, HS women endorsed fewer current reasons for living than did NoHS women, NoHS men, and NoHS men. These findings were interpreted both with regard to cultural and gender-specific expectations for the expression of self-destructive, suicidal, and life-threatening behavior. Implications for the prevention of college women's and men's suicidal behavior were also noted.     

Tomboyism

The meager research available on tomboyism is based on the assumption that it is rare and abnormal. Following an initial observation that 78% of a group of undergraduate women reported having been tomboys in childhood, the frequency of tomboyism was assessed in two samples, one of junior-high girls, the other of adult women. In the junior-high sample, 63% reported being tomboys, while 51% of the adult women reported having been tomboys in childhood. Tomboyish behaviors such as a preference for active, outdoor games, playing with boys, and wearing jeans were also very frequent. It was concluded that tomboyism is statistically quite common and there is little indication that it is abnormal.