Although no specific personality disorder seems responsible for suicide behavior, it has been suggested that hysterical personality could predispose to suicide behavior. Schizoid, anti-social and obsessoid rigid personalities have been linked to high risk suicide attempts. This study elicited response patterns and attitudes of South African university students (N=283) to hypothetical stressful situations. Suicidal psychiatric patients (N=60) who had recovered from a current episode of mental illness served as controls. All subjects completed questionnaires consisting of seven attitude scales: (1) attitude to self; (2) attitude to life; (3) attitude to the world; (4) stress reaction; (5) happiness scale; (6) passive death wishes; and (7) active death wishes. The results revealed that 32% of the students and 56% of the patients would be inclined to suicide or the passive acceptance of death under stressful circumstances. Forty-eight percent of the students and 46% of the patients reported having attempted suicide. Twenty-two percent of the students and 30% of the patients thought future suicidal behavior was likely. Several target attitudes were identified as markers of possible future suicidal acts. Subjects identified as high-risk thought they had insufficient achievement in life, felt they should not have been born, considered themselves not understood or appreciated by their family, found death too far away, and had nervous reactions to stress with agitation and confusion. (ABL)