A few years ago, there was a rash of suicides among students at the local high school. There was nothing like it prior to that period, and there’s been nothing like it since. I recall hearing the parents discuss it at church. Of course, it was devastating for all involved—family, friends, and community.
One of the topics discussed in Influence, a book I’ve already highly recommended to you and my family members, is the impact of social proof on decision-making. “If another person does it, it must be ok.” I was always taught the converse: “If everybody else jumps off the bridge, are you going to jump?” We might laugh it off and say no, but we would do well to remember the influence Jim Jones had in persuading more than 900 of his followers to commit suicide in a South American jungle in 1978. Why did they follow him, and what can we do to stop others from following a similar path?
Here I’d like to consider several studies focused on determining whether suicides beget more suicides—and whether some “accidents” are not accidents at all. The author of Influence, Robert Cialdini, provides documentation for his work; you’ll have to buy the book if you’d like to investigate the sources further. I have selected quotes that summarize the findings of numerous researchers on this topic.
1. “After a suicide has made front-page news, airplanes—private planes, corporate jets, airliners—begin falling out of the sky at an alarming rate.”[1]
2. Immediately following certain kinds of highly publicized suicide stories, the number of people who die in commercial-airline crashes increases by 1,000 percent! Even more alarming: the increase is not limited to airplane deaths. The number of automobile fatalities shoots up as well.”[2]
3. [Data show] “it is the publicized suicide story itself that produces the car and plane wrecks.[3]
4. “Newspaper stories reporting suicide victims who died alone produce an increase in the frequency of single-fatality wrecks only, whereas stories reporting suicide-plus-murder incidents produce an increase in multiple-fatality wrecks only.” [4]
5. “Within two months after every front-page suicide story, an average of fifty-eight more people than usual killed themselves…. The wider the publicity given the first suicide, the greater the number of later ones…. The pattern isn’t limited to newspaper accounts. On March 31, 2017, Netflix premiered the web series 13 Reasons Why, in which a young high school student commits suicide and leaves behind a set of thirteen tapes detailing the reasons. In the next thirty days, suicides among young adolescents rose by 28.9 percent—to a number higher than at any month in the five-year span analyzed by the researchers….”[5]
6. “When the newspaper detailed the suicide of a young person, it was young drivers who then piled their cars into trees, poles, and embankments with fatal results; but when the news story concerned an older person’s suicide, it was older drivers who died in such crashes.”[6]
7. After a number of boys at a local high school committed suicide by stepping in front of a train at a local railroad yard, one mother couldn’t find her son one afternoon. She began to suspect the worst, and rushed to the railroad yard, at the exact location where the other young men had ended their lives. And there she found her son, still alive.[7]
8. A lot of tragedies that we accept as accidents are in fact copycat suicides, often disguised as such so that surviving family members are able to collect life insurance benefits and to protect them from the compounded grief of death by suicide. (Several studies supporting this claim are provided in the book.)
So what’s my point in sharing these observations? It’s two-fold. First, as Cialdini points out, journalists need to ponder how to present reports of suicides and accidents that may be suicides. Yes, it’s news, and yes, we have freedom of the press, but we also need to consider how news reports affect community members—especially in a period of societal chaos. These reports are newsworthy—we definitely need to know what is occurring in our communities, but the research demonstrates that they are also malignant.
Second, if we are aware, perhaps we can work to prevent such copycat suicides within our homes and communities in the future. We know that suicide rates rise when catastrophes challenge folks in difficult times. Paying close attention to susceptible family members and intervening with help will save some. Preparing well so that life in the new normal isn’t so dismal and depressing will save others.
Thank you, as a retired high school teacher who has seen copycat suicides, this topic rarely comes up until its too late. I worry about everyone (young and old) who will be shocked when things go south.
ReplyDeleteADK T
Back in my junior high days a girl tried to kill herself by taking a lot of pills. She was found collapsed and unconscious and the ambulance saved her. That was the first suicide i knew of. Over the next few weeks 5 other kids tried it, most were bad attempts that were more attention seaking than actual attempts to self terminate. One was an actual success. At the time i wondered if the first one had nudged the others once the heard about it.
ReplyDeleteExile1981
No doubt that was the case. And that's why I thought it was important to consider here.
DeleteAfter the fall of the USSR there was a lot of early deaths as despair and hopelessness overtook once well employed people, mostly men now unable to feed their families.
ReplyDeleteThose that had still maintained faith in the Orthodox Church (even though not encouraged in the USSR) did the best.
I have one medically retired soldier in my MAG that we keep an eye on as military suicides is a real problem.
I'm glad you're watching out for him. I met quite a few people in the Soviet Union when I was on study abroad there. Only two of the young one were active in their faith, and all (faithful to ambivalent to card-carrying Communist) noted the persecution of the faithful. It's strange that people can't seem to understand the blessings of having a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father and His Son.
Delete