Abstract
New Zealand has the second highest suicide rate in the world with young adults being disproportionately affected. High rates of suicidal ideation are met with low rates of disclosure and help-seeking. Therefore, the primary objective of my thesis was to understand the motivational tendencies of individuals that have had suicidal thoughts and not disclosed. In Study 1, I hypothesised that subconscious goal-directed avoidance tendencies predicts non- disclosure. To test this hypothesis, a cross-sectional study of 80 undergraduate psychology students were conducted in-person by appointment. First, participants completed a computerised task followed by a set of questionnaires about approach-avoidance motivation, suicidal thoughts, disclosure and demographics. Qualitative data indicated that the task data was not useable. Therefore, a decision was made to terminate assessment and revise the task design. In Study 2, I hypothesised that non-disclosure of suicidal ideation in the past month, predicts subconscious and conscious avoidance tendencies. Additionally, that non-disclosure predicts subconscious avoidance of emotive (happy and angry) faces and no bias in response to neutral faces. Data were collected from 225 participants using the same method as Study 1 except for the task and associated stimuli. There was insufficient evidence to support the hypotheses of Study 2. To have confidence that there is no effect of disclosure on approach-avoidance motivation, future research should aim to obtain an adequately powered sample.