# The Werther effect -- did it really happen?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 12, 2000, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342 "2000-07-12T19:52:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maralinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@maralinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maralinn)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342/1 "2000-07-12T19:52:26Z")

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Many sources report that Goethe’s book The Sorrows of Young Werther “sparked a wave of emulative suicides accross Europe” (Cialdini, Influence, 1984). I haven’t been able to find real documentation of that, though. Were there really that many? How many were there?

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**Author:** ![waldenfont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/97f17d/32.png) [@waldenfont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waldenfont)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342/2 "2000-07-12T19:59:07Z")

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At least that’s what I learned in school when we were reading “die Leiden des jungen Werther.” Scores of young men would dress like Werther, mope like him, keep a diary like him, and at least a few carried the thing to its logical conclusion and blew their brains out. . . .

Hope this helps ,

Oliver

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**Author:** ![maralinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@maralinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maralinn)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342/3 "2000-07-12T22:42:30Z")

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Just wish I could find a figure, though. Even an estimate of the number of suicides attributed to the Werther effect.

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**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2000, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-werther-effect-did-it-really-happen/25342/4 "2000-07-13T00:33:05Z")

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Seeber, Edward. “Literature and the Question of Suicide: Werther in France,” in Goethe Bicentennial Studies (Bloomington, 1950)

From a bibliography on suicide. You might be able to find it in a library somewhere.