Psychological Reports, 1990, 67, 786
O l'sychological Reports 1990
INTERPERSONAL TRUST, DEPRESSION, AND SUICIDAL IDEATION I N TEENAGERS ' DAVID LESTER AND JERI-LYNN GATT0
Richard Stockton State College Strmmary.-Scores on Rotter's Interpersonal Trust Scale and Beck Depression Scale correlated negatively for 40 high school smdents. Trust scores improved the power of depress~onscores in predicting suicidal ideation.
The majority of suicidal people are depressed, but not a l l depressed people are suicidal (Lester, 1988). This raises the question of what leads some depressed people to contemplate suicide while others do not. The present study explored whether depression interacted with interpersonal trust to predict suicidal ideation in a sample of youth. A questionnaire was given anonymously to 40 high school students enrolled in a social science course. There were 12 boys and 28 girls, with a mean age of 17.3 yr. (SD:0.5). The questionnaire contained Rotter's (1967) inventory of interpersonal trust and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961). Item 9 of the Beck Depression Inventory concerns current suicide ideation. The mean scores and standard deviations were on depression, 11.12 and 7.52, on trust, 64.00 and 9.51, and on suicidal ideation, 0.57 and 0.68. Suicidal ideation on Item 9 of the Beck Depression Inventory was positively associated with the depression score based on the remaining 20 items (Pearson r = 0.24) and with the trust inventory score (r = 0.24), giving a multiple R of 0.40, with both components contributing significantly (beta coefficients of 0.33 and 0.33, respectively; t ratios were 2.09 and 2.12, ps = .04). In contrast, total depression scores were negatively associated with trust scores ( r = - 0.28, p
O l'sychological Reports 1990
INTERPERSONAL TRUST, DEPRESSION, AND SUICIDAL IDEATION I N TEENAGERS ' DAVID LESTER AND JERI-LYNN GATT0
Richard Stockton State College Strmmary.-Scores on Rotter's Interpersonal Trust Scale and Beck Depression Scale correlated negatively for 40 high school smdents. Trust scores improved the power of depress~onscores in predicting suicidal ideation.
The majority of suicidal people are depressed, but not a l l depressed people are suicidal (Lester, 1988). This raises the question of what leads some depressed people to contemplate suicide while others do not. The present study explored whether depression interacted with interpersonal trust to predict suicidal ideation in a sample of youth. A questionnaire was given anonymously to 40 high school students enrolled in a social science course. There were 12 boys and 28 girls, with a mean age of 17.3 yr. (SD:0.5). The questionnaire contained Rotter's (1967) inventory of interpersonal trust and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961). Item 9 of the Beck Depression Inventory concerns current suicide ideation. The mean scores and standard deviations were on depression, 11.12 and 7.52, on trust, 64.00 and 9.51, and on suicidal ideation, 0.57 and 0.68. Suicidal ideation on Item 9 of the Beck Depression Inventory was positively associated with the depression score based on the remaining 20 items (Pearson r = 0.24) and with the trust inventory score (r = 0.24), giving a multiple R of 0.40, with both components contributing significantly (beta coefficients of 0.33 and 0.33, respectively; t ratios were 2.09 and 2.12, ps = .04). In contrast, total depression scores were negatively associated with trust scores ( r = - 0.28, p
