Topic 11 - Suicide

Suicide is arguably the ultimate deviant act as it goes against all ideas of self presevation and is extremely difficult for people to comprehend
Positivists vs Interpretivists
Durkheim's Study of Suicide (positivistic approach)
1. Durkhiem argued that there are patterns in suicide and their social causes could be discovered, which would prove sociology is a science
  1. Durkheim's chosen method was multivariate analysis - method of gathering statistics from different societies and comparing the patterns to help explain social differences between societies
    1. This positivistic approach allows Durkheim to make cause and effect relationships with religion and marital status
  2. Over a period of time is could be seen that suicide rates were different across countries and regions within countries, across different religions and across married and unmarried
    1. This all supported Durkheim's argument that there was a social explanation for suicide
  3. To explain these patterns, Durkheim returned to shared values (consensual) and social cohesion, he argued that people are naturally selfish and do no concern themselves with problems faced by others; society achieves this by making people aware of their social bond to others (Hirschi)
    1. He added that the greater levels of social integration, the more harmonious a society is, society achieves this by drawing people together on basis of common values taught primarily through family and reinforced by religion
  4. Durkhiem suggested that those who feel most closely integrated into society are those with family relationships
    1. Religion operated on a broader level providing people with a moral underpinning for shared values
      1. E.g. roman catholics who stress the importance of the group and they consider search for individual happiness as relatively unimportant
2. Durkheim's 4 Types of Suicide
  1. Durkheim notes that suicide is directly related to levels of social integration in a society, and he catergorized these into 4 types of suicides ...
  2. Egoistic
    1. Too little integration, these people who commit egoistic suicide do not feel a strong sense of community, Durkhiem noted people were often better integrated into society because of family and religion
      1. Married people with children are more protected from suicide than single or or divorced people or childless couples
        But Durkheim noted that protection was not from marriage but from integrating effect of family life and children
    2. E.g. catholic societies gave lower suicide rates than protestant societies, because they feel a stronger sense of community than protestants
      1. Catholics have a stronger sense of of their community
  3. Alturistic
    1. Too much integration, where individual's duty is to die for good of the group e.g. extremist suicide bombers
    2. Individual is expected to commit suicide on behalf of wider society
  4. Anomic
    1. Too little regulation, societies norms become unclear or outdated by rapid change e.g. economic booms
    2. A wealthy person may suddenly become poor due to stock market crash, person may not be able to deal with new norms and values
    3. Confusion caused can result in suicide
  5. Fatalistic
    1. To much regulation, where society controls individuals completely e.g. slavery or prison and it accounts for a lot of suicides in prison
  6. Different types of societies have different types of suicide ...
    1. In modern societies (organic) individualism is more important causing egoistic suicides while rapid change produces anomic suicides
    2. In traditional societies (mechanistic) the group is more important causing alturistic suicide, individuals have rigid ascribed statuses causing fatalistic suicide
3. Criticisms of Durkheim
  1. Durkkheim did not offer any guidance on how to recognise different types of crime, interpretivists note that without knowing the intention of the deceased to is difficult to use Durkheims classifications
  2. Durkheims theory depends on social cohesion
  3. Durkheim claimed that social integration was linked most closely to religion and family membership, but Durkehim provides no explanation of how this can be verified or falsified
  4. Durkheim largely relied upon official statistics
    1. These statistics he used are said to be unreliable as there was no systematic medical examination of the dead
  5. Failed to explain why suicide is most likely result of not enough or too much integration, why does it not lead to other actions such as crime?
Interpretivists Theories of Suicide
1. Interpretivist approaches stress they way that society operates through peoples interacting on the basis on shared meanings
  1. They look at the way these meanings are constructed and how they influence individuals meanings
    1. So in regard to suicide they focus on meaning for those involved e.g. deceased, coroners and relatives
  2. They reject idea that society can be studied with methods from physical sciences (quantitative)
2. Douglas takes an interactionalist approach, he is interested in the meaning of the suicide for the deceased and also the way coroners label deaths
  1. Suicide has different meanings to those who commit suicide and their motives may vary to
  2. You can apply Douglas' ideas to explain patterns Durkheim found e.g. socially integrated people only seen to have lower suicide rates because relatives etc may persuade coroners to bring a different verdict
  3. Douglas rejects the use of statistics
    1. They are not social facts as Durkheim believes, but social constructions based on the interpretation of coroners of death and also other actors e.g. family and friends
  4. We must classify suicides according to their meanings for the deceased
    1. To do so Douglas uses qualitative data; suicide notes, interviews with survivors or relatives, he argues that this will give real idea of real rate of suicide rather than official statistics
  5. Douglas produces a classification of suicide based on actors meanings, but why should we believe Douglas is any better than coroners at interpreting a dead persons meanings
3. Atkinson to is critical of Durkhiem's use of official statistics
  1. He notes that official statistics are socially constructed and are the end product of a complex set of interactions and interpretations of victims, doctors, friends, relatives and significantly coroners
    1. Coroners are officials who decide on the cause of death
    2. Atkinson notes that officially a death is not suicide until it has been labelled as such by a coroner
      1. In order for a coroner to make a decision, they must piece together a series of clues and then decide whether or not these point to suicide
        Atkinson notes that the following clues are particularly important: suicide notes, mode of death, location and circumstances of death and life history/mental condition
    3. Atkinson argues that official statistics therefore reflect coroners decisions rather than the underlying reality
Parasuicide
1. Taylor has noted that both Durkheim and critics have missed the significance of parasuicides as the majority of times people who attempt suicide do not die
2. Pararsucicide - suicide attempts where person is not certain whether they want to die or not and 'gamble' with their life
3. Most attempts leave the outcome in the hands of fate or God
  1. If they survive then they were not meant to die and if they die then it was fate or god intended
    1. Religious critiques
4. Taylor however supports Durkheim's belief that suicide is more likely in individuals too detached from others in society (egoistic) and those too detached (alturistic)
5. Taylor's argument shows that it is possible to pull together wider social factors Durkheim empahized with sense of meaning Douglas stressed

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Topic 11 - Suicide

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