Blues fans and suicide acceptability

Research has neglected the possible impact of the blues music subculture on suicide acceptability (SA). The sad themes in the blues may attract suicid al persons and reinforce their suicidal moods and attitudes. The present st udy performs the first test of the thesis that associates SA with being a b lues fan. It uses data on a national sample of 961 adults drawn from the Ge neral Social Survey of 1993. he results of a multivariate logistic regressi on analysis found that blues fans were no more accepting of suicide than no nfans. However, blues fanship was found to have substantial indirect effect s on SA through its influence on such factors as lowered religiosity levels , the most important predictor of SA. Race-specific analyses found more sup port for the model for whites than for African Americans.