Chapter 7 Suicide. Introduction Myth: depression is the major cause of suicide Myth: suicide bombers...

Chapter 7

Suicide

Introduction

• Myth: depression is the major cause of suicide

• Myth: suicide bombers are generally psychotic– Or at least irrational, poor and uneducated

• Every year about 31,000 Americans commit suicide

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Varieties of Suicidal Experience

• 3 types of suicidal experiences:

– Some threaten suicide; 40% attempted to kill themselves in the past;

• Many use the attempt as a means of achieving some objective in life and don’t want to die

– Suicide attempters are ambiguous in their intent; most do NOT succeed

– 2/3 who commit suicide had prior attempt


Self-Injurers

• Multiple reasons for these physical acts

• Cutting– Existing literature suggests substantial

variation among cutters • In terms of function and form of cutting practices


Inside the Social Structure and Organization of Cutting

• “individual deviants,” vs. the “loners” or “loner deviants”

• Cutters are more difficult to situate in one specific category of deviance– Constantly negotiating the boundaries of their

new options and possibilities


Groups With Higher Suicide Rates

• Stats are not always reliable

• Traditionally, suicide rates are higher in urban areas

• Today, suicide rates are higher in rural areas

• The suicide rate is higher among whites than blacks in the U.S.



• Protestants have higher suicide rates than Catholics– Who in turn have higher rates than Jews

• Men are more likely to kill themselves than women

• Attempted suicide rates are higher among women than men



• Men are more likely to use lethal instruments such as firearms

• Divorced persons have the highest suicide rate, married the lowest rate– And single individuals are intermediate



• U.S. suicide rates tends to rise with increasing age

• Findings on the relationship between social class and suicide are contradictory


A Social Profile of Suicide Bombers

• Relatively well-off; middle class; better educated than their countrymen

• Mostly young, male and single, and see themselves as martyrs

• Suicide attacks have been common throughout history


Situational Factors in Suicide

• Teenagers today are much more likely than in past to kill themselves

• Going to college is associated with higher suicide rates

• Suicide in prison is relatively common


Situational Factors in Suicide

• People with fatal diseases have higher rates of suicide; this holds true for AIDS

• Mass media has an influence on suicide – – Highly publicized suicides tend to result in

national suicide rates increasing


Global Perspective on Suicide

• Suicide rates are higher in industrialized countries

• In Western countries, suicide rates peak in the spring and bottom out in winter

• Suicide occurs more often in the beginning of the week and very rarely on weekends


Social Responses to Suicide

• When a loved one commits suicide, survivors tend to feel guilty

•

• Patients have the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment (living will)

• Several individuals and organizations try to prevent suicide


Sociological Theories of Suicide

• To sociologists, causes of suicide do not reside within the individual

– But rather within the group to whom the individual belongs

• And the individual’s interaction with agents of social institutions



• Durkheimian theory:

– social integration: involves persons attaching themselves to groups

– social regulation: involves individuals being coercively regulated by a group


Suicide• In another study,

Durkheim found that the more firmly connected people are to others, the less likely they are to commit suicide; thus demonstrating that even suicide is impacted by social forces.

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• Henry and Short theory:

– Interprets suicide as an act of aggression directed toward oneself

• That results from three factors – sociological, psychological and economic



• Phenomenological theories:

– Theory of suicidal meanings:

• Individuals impute specific meanings to their prospective suicidal acts



– Theory of suicide process:

• Interprets the social meanings of suicide as a social prohibition against suicide

–So that the suicidal person must overcome the prohibition before taking his or her own life


Chapter 7 Suicide. Introduction Myth: depression is the major cause of suicide Myth: suicide bombers...

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