ATTITUDES TOWARD SUICIDE AND CONSERVATISM - A COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND UNITED-STATES SAMPLES

The Suicide Opinion Questionnaire and the Conservatism Scale were admi nistered to two samples of respondents: seventy-three mainland Chinese adults and seventy-three United States adults of comparable age, gend er, and socioeconomic level. The results indicated significant mean di fferences on all eight SOQ scales and on Conservatism. Chinese mean sc ores reflected higher agreement on the SOQ scales of mental illness, c ry for help, and aggression, and higher disagreement on the right to d ie, religion, impulsivity, normality, and moral evil scales. Chinese s cored in the more conservative direction, but in both samples the patt ern of correlations between conservatism and SOQ scales was highly sim ilar.