Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Suicide is a leading cause of premature death and accounts for 24% of all deaths among Canadians aged 15-24. One group of individuals that is particularly vulnerable to suicide is perfectionists. Perfectionists are individuals that have unrealistically high standards and are overly critical of themselves. For these individuals, failure to live up to high standards can cause unbearable psychological pain, which drives them to commitsuicide. Unfortunately, detecting and preventing suicide amongst perfectionists is especially difficult, because perfectionists often conceal their imperfection from others. For these reasons, perfectionists often commitsuicide without warning and prior to others recognizing that they are at-risk. In these and related cases, difficulty identifying at-risk individuals prevents family, friends and health care providers from providing support and assistance that is essential to suicide prevention. One means of identifying suicidality, that does not rely upon individuals explicitly opening up about being suicidal, is the implicit measure of suicidality, which tests individuals' automatic association and identificationwith suicide-related words. Implicit suicidality has been shown to predict suicidal behaviours in both clinical and non-clinical populations, but its utility has not yet been studied amongst perfectionists. Given the importance of identifying suicidality early on, implicit assessment of suicidality is likely an importanttool for identifying at-risk perfectionists. Therefore, this research will explore implicit and explicit suicidality amongst perfectionists' and will contribute to early detection and suicide intervention efforts within this vulnerable population.