IS NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY ASSOCIATED WITH SUICIDE IDEATION IN MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER MEN?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Older adults have high rates of suicide, necessitating theory and research on factors that contribute to suicide risk and may be targets for intervention. Clark (1993) theorized that age-related losses and transitions can trigger narcissistic injury in older men, and lead to mood decline, substance misuse, loss of insight, and suicide ideation and behavior. We tested elements of Clark’s model in a secondary analysis of a geriatric depression clinic database (n=574), and reported a positive association between clinician-diagnosed Narcissistic Personality (NP) and suicide ideation and behavior, controlling for depression severity (Heisel et al., 2007). We sought to replicate and extend these findings in 82 community-residing men, 55 years and older (M=63.3, SD=4.6), who participated in a trial of Meaning-Centered Men’s Group (MCMG; Heisel et al., 2020) for those concerned about or struggling with the transition to retirement. Participants completed the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (Pincus et al., 2009), Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale (Heisel & Flett, 2006), and Geriatric Depression Scale (Yesavage et al., 1983). Linear regression analyses indicated a significant association between PNI-Contingent Self-Esteem and GSIS totals (t=2.41, p=.019) and GSIS Loss of Personal Worth (t=2.10, p=.040) and Perceived Meaning in Life Subscales (t=2.80, p=.007), controlling for depressive symptom severity (Geriatric Depression Scale; Yesavage et al., 1983), suggesting an association between suicide ideation and self-esteem issues. These and other findings will be discussed in a broader thematic context regarding masculinity, loss, life transitions, and suicide prevention.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".