I work for a university and, tragically, we just experienced our second suicide in a month’s time. In a meeting this morning, there was a lot of talk and concern about “suicide clusters.” Research suggests that suicides will often happen in clusters; that one suicide will almost be “contagious” and lead to others.
After the meeting, I jumped on the internet to find out more about the psychology behind this phenomenon. I found this Time article and this case study , amongst a lot of other sites. The Time piece isn’t informative enough and the case study turned my brain to mush.
Is there any psychology-/sociologically-minded Doper than can list some of the reasons that suicide might be “contagious?”
Put people into a common, stressful environment and you will get common actions. Once one person elects to suicide as a form of escape, it “breaks the ice” for others who feel as stressed as the first.
I’ve spoken to them and they site examples and anecdotes, but no real reasons that this phenomena might occur.
I rarely interact with undergraduates, who are the focus of concern right now. I didn’t want to take up too much time in a meeting for something that’s no more than my own sociological curiosity.
But I’ll certainly take up The Dope’s time with my curiosity! Thanks for the perspectives so far.
This topic is covered in Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. If I recall, he says it has to do with people hearing about it, then some of them trying it. Some of those that try it succeed. Hearing about it almost justifies it. It goes kind of like this-Person A has had enough and commits suicide…it makes the news or gets around…someone feeling depressed hears about it and thinks “What the hell” and goes through with it,…this person makes the news or word gets around and another person has a go at it…this continues until there has been a slight rise in the suicide rate…other depressed individuals see it as a trend and then next thing you know you have a cluster of suicides. Basically it comes to be thought of as an acceptable alternative (albeit in a limited population).
It has been about 2 years since I read the book but that is the gist. Mr. Gladwell explains it much better than I can.
The explanations for a “contagion” of suicides seem intuitively reasonable. The key element, of course, is communication among the group. It is not hard to imagine that a person who is depressed and perhaps already thinking of suicide could be spurred to action by the news of someone in their community having done it.
On the other hand, statistics predicts that some clusters will happen just by chance. Knowing this, we can’t say that all suicide clusters are due to a “contagion” – just some of them. The interesting part is figuring out which ones.
As an anecdote, I experienced a suicide cluster that I believe was not entirely caused by chance. I was attending a small college (campus population under 1400) and the spring semester began with the news that one student had killed herself at home just a few days before classes started. I did not know her, but later in the term another student whom I had occasionally eaten lunch with committed suicide on campus. Then, near the end of the term (on either the last or second-to-last weekend before finals) a student who had been in one of my classes the year before killed himself in the same manner as the second. About a week later I heard from a reliable source that there had been another attempt, this one unsuccessful, with yet again the same method. (I’m speaking vaguely here to protect the privacy of others.)
I have sometimes wondered whether the second suicide was precipitated by the first, but after that I’m sure it was not chance. The atmosphere on campus became very strange after that – we were all talking about it and thinking about it. By the end of the term it was absolutely horrible. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure there was . . . not a cause-and-effect, but a stimulus-response process going on.
Thanks for the perspectives so far.