Suicide

Suicide

1. Positivist

   • Durkheim (1897)
     • used coroners statistics
     • established correlationship & causal relationships between the socities in which people lived and the suicide rates
     • suicide is a social fact that is determined by social facts
     • suicide rate determined by:
       • social integration (share N&Vs)
         • Altruistic (too much)
         • Egoistic (too little)
       • social regulation (controlled)
         • Fatalistic (too much)
         • Anomic (too little)
     • CRITICISMS: suicide stats not reliable cuz coroners prefer to classify unexplained deaths as 'accidental; 4 types are too deterministic- some suicides (eg. Kurt Cobain) can fit into all four categories; his research has not reduced the suicide rate.
       • Durkheim is too deterministic
   • scientific study
     • statistical analysis

2. Interpretivist

   • social construction of suicide statistics
   • seek to achieve verstehen
   • micro
   • meanings & motives
   • use personal documents
     • diaries
     • suicide notes
   • Douglas (1967)
     • wanted to understand cultural meanings behind suicide
       • culture affects suicide
     • wanted to build a qualitative picture of the victim
     • not interested in large scale social analysis
   • Atkinson (1978)
     • counters Douglas
     • we can never know if the death was really suicide
       • the one person we need to ask can't tell us
     • suicide stats are socially constructed
       • shaped/manipulated by social processes
       • suicide rates are the outcome of coroners' decisions
         • they impose their common sense definitions of the typical suicide victim
           • the cues they find / this process creates suicide statistics
             • primary cues: suicide notes, method (hanging vs overdose), history of mental health issues

3. Realist

   • combination
     • positivist
     • interpretivist
   • improve society (influence socpol)
     • best way is w/ well rounded aproach
   • Dorais (2004)
     • homophobia in soc
       • isolation of gay/bisexual men
         • lack of integration
           • suicide
     • similar to interpretivists
       • egoistic suicide (lack of integration)
         • categories
     • similar to positivists
       • in depth unstructured interviews
         • find meanings & motives
   • Taylor (1982, 1989, 1990)
     • similar to positivist
       • underlying patterns of suicide
         • categories: Submissive; Thanatation; Sacrifice; Appeal
     • similar to interpretivist
       • certain factors influence coroners' classification
         • result of personal situations

4. The act of intentionally causing one's own death.