Approximately 9% of people think about suicide during their lifetime. Suicidal thoughts are consistently associated with perceived failures in emotion regulation. However, factors contributing to these perceptions remain insufficiently clear. New evidence suggests that when people know little about the cause of their emotions (i.e., low source attribution of emotion), they perceive themselves as less successful in regulating them. Therefore, emotion regulation deficits in people with suicidal thoughts might be related to lower knowledge about sources of emotions. We examined this question in two ecological momentary assessment studies (N₁ = 396, N₂ = 195). We found that participants with current suicidal thoughts knew less about the sources of their emotions compared to participants with no suicidal thoughts history (Studies 1 and 2), and even when compared to controls with similar levels of psychiatric symptoms but no history of suicidal thoughts (Study 2). Using language processing, we found that written descriptions of the source of participants' emotions were less concrete among those with suicidal thoughts compared to participants with no suicidal thoughts history. Among suicidal participants, suicidal thoughts were more likely to be present in moments when participants knew less than usual about the source of their negative emotions (Study 2), and low knowledge of the source was associated with more frequent and prolonged suicidal thoughts (Studies 1 and 2). Finally, lower perceived success in emotion regulation mediated the association between source attribution of emotion and the occurrence of suicidal thoughts. Findings suggest that reduced knowledge about the source of negative emotions might increase the risk for suicidal thinking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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自杀念头与情绪来源归因减少有关。


大约 9% 的人在一生中考虑过自杀。自杀念头始终与感知到的情绪调节失败有关。然而，导致这些看法的因素仍然不够清楚。新的证据表明，当人们对自己情绪的原因知之甚少（即情绪的来源归因较低）时，他们认为自己在调节情绪方面不太成功。因此，有自杀念头的人的情绪调节缺陷可能与对情绪来源的了解较少有关。我们在两项生态瞬时评估研究 （N₁ = 396， N₂ = 195） 中研究了这个问题。我们发现，与没有自杀念头史的参与者相比（研究 1 和 2），即使与具有相似水平的精神症状但没有自杀念头史的对照组相比，目前有自杀念头的参与者对自己情绪来源的了解也较少（研究 2）。使用语言处理，我们发现与没有自杀念头史的参与者相比，有自杀念头的人对参与者情绪来源的书面描述不那么具体。在有自杀倾向的参与者中，自杀念头更有可能出现在参与者对其负面情绪来源的了解比平时少的时刻（研究 2），而对来源的了解不足与更频繁和更持久的自杀念头有关（研究 1 和 2）。最后，情绪调节的较低感知成功介导了情绪来源归因与自杀念头发生之间的关联。研究结果表明，对负面情绪来源的了解减少可能会增加自杀想法的风险。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。