jQuery change select list selectedIndex on hover event and also send click?

I have an image on my page that when hovered changes the selectedIndex of a select list.

// change the selected index of the select list on element hover
$("#mySelectList").attr('selectedIndex', 1); // works

The select list also fires another function on change. This works when I manually change the options from the select list but not when I change the selectedIndex on the hover event (code above).

My question, is there a way that I can also send a "click" event or something similar? Basically I want to be able to change the selectedIndex of the select list and also have it fire the other function.

What you can try is to trigger the change (or click or whetever) event.

$('#mySelectList').trigger('change');

or

$('#mySelectList').trigger('click');

after you've set the selected index

You can fire the onchange event of the select control:

How do I programmatically force an onchange event on an input?

Just use:

$("#mySelectList").onchange()

Why not refactor the function that you would perform normally in the click event into a JavaScript function and then call it directly?