International Baccalaureate Extended Essay
Abstract
This paper discusses the social perceptions of suicide in the United States. The discussion includes not only what the society perceives of a suicide incident, but what the suicide victim perceives of his society. The content concerning the factors which foster the acceptance of suicide in the United States today includes discussion about former societies and their opinion of suicide and cultural differences in suicide acceptance. Psychological studies testing variations of age. sex. circumstances, etc. are also discussed in support of the information provided. The final point of discussion involves that which the suicide attempter perceives about the society around him and his reasons for committing, or attempting to commit, suicide. After reading this paper one will find that there are several circumstances under which most Americans will feel a suicide is justified or acceptable, yet acceptance of suicide at this point remains highly circumstantial and is by no means wholly accepted nor wholly rejected.
What makes suicide acceptable?
As humans, we form social perceptions as a result of several factors. According to the social learning theory, people learn through imitation of peers and companions; thus, they form opinions based on the beliefs of those around them. Without a doubt, the social learning theory applies to the discussion of suicide. Current acceptance of suicide in the United States originates from the many different cultures and societies which make up the United States today. The conventional notions relating to suicide do more than just explain the American viewpoint; such information can be extremely revealing about the American social structure. Acceptability of suicide, however, is not fully dependent on those who view it; the suicide victim also forms justifications for his suicide based on that which society presents to him.
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To obtain information about former societies and their cultures, historians rely on items such as recovered documents and artifacts; however, the idea of analyzing suicides as means of divulging information about a society is not a new concept. Over one hundred years ago, Emile Durkheim became one of the first men to study suicide. As a result, he developed a theory which links suicides to society. According to Durkheim’s theory, a suicide victim’s reasons committing the act reflect that which society considers acceptable or decent. Even today, social perspectives about an issue as controversial as suicide reflect that which is considered “acceptable” behavior. By considering the circumstances under which suicide is considered “acceptable” or “rational”, one can learn about the typical moral structure of the United States.
In the book, Le Suicide, Emile Durkheim discussed four forms of suicide, each involving a different personality type. David Lester relates these types to today’s society (“Applying Durkheim’s Typology” 231).
The first of the four is the egoistic suicide. In this case the individual chooses to end his life because of the inability to successfully fit into society. Most frequently, such is the case in suicides committed by young adults. The pressure to be part of a group can sometimes be overwhelming, so much so that the youth feels his only solution is to kill himself. Such a feeling is not only prominent in the United States, but in China as well. The Chinese custom of arranging marriages often causes stress among Chinese youth, so much so that dating and marital stress lead the list of causes for suicide among inhabitants of China (Zhang and Jin 1996).
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The next form, altruistic suicide, is virtually the opposite of the egoistic personality. In this case, the individual is overly involved with a group and feels that nothing, even his own life, is too much to spare for the benefit of the group. In the United States, the media’s coverage of this form of suicide is not very extensive in because suicides of this form have been to known to be committed by cult societies and the such. Next comes the anomic suicide; here, the victim is involved in some sort of crisis situation with which his is incapable of dealing. Say for example, that a man loses his job and becomes unable to pay his bills or support his family. If this man decides to commit suicide, he would partake in an anomic suicide because he has encounter a situation which he believes can only be avoided by death. Victims of anomic suicides rarely take into account that committing suicide will only worsen the situation for those who are dependent upon him. Most frequently, social breakdowns are represented by anomic suicides. Finally, there is the fatalistic suicide, in which the victim feels that he is the object of extreme regulation, and in turn he feels that he lacks freedom and means of escape. This type of suicide attempter may also feel that he has little opportunity to establish himself as an individual. Determining which categories suit recent suicides provides trivial information about the social pressures to which a suicide victim is susceptible to.
Furthermore, Durkheim discussed two critical social elements termed “social integration”, the idea that every individual is in some way integrated into his cultural structure, and “social regulation”, the amount of regulation a culture has over an individual. The extent to which the individual is integrated into that society was the key factor in determining his suicide risk. Individuals were believed to be high risk suicide victims if they were situated at either extreme of Durkheim’s social integration spectrum. The same true if a society had either too much or not enough control over the individual in question. Researcher Barry Maley further interpreted social integration to have a “connotation of cohesiveness … shared sentiments and beliefs”. To be integrated fairly well into a society, means to be content with the social and economic ties one has to the society, yet it also means that one must understand the extent to which the society controls his actions.
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... the opposite of egotistic suicide, is caused by over integration with society, when individuals become so immersed into their social group that they will ... a pretext for someone to kill him or herself. Durkheim stated that, "One man kills himself in the midst of affluence, ... of the family will make suicide likely); in wartime when there was a common cause to unite people; and within religions such ...
Kathy Charmaz, author of The Social Reality of Death, feels that suicide has come to mean only that which people have thought, felt and done about it, as opposed to the act of suicide itself (234).
She continues on to say that “what everybody ‘knows’ about suicide directly reflects the cultural values about it.” (236).
In the United States, that which everyone “knows” about suicide can, and does, vary greatly. When discussing suicide, one must distinguish between what one “knows” about the subject and what one “believes”; in doing so, he will discover that he honestly “knows” very little about suicide, and that which he believes about suicide is fairly consistent with the opinions of other Americans. Acceptance of suicide in the United States is a combination of former perceptions of suicide, the perceptions of the various cultures which make up the United States, that which is considered “normal”, and the circumstances under which the suicide is committed. The key to comprehending suicide acceptance as it relates to the United States involves understanding the “stigma” which is strongly associated to the actual act of suicide. As stated by author Kathy Charmaz, “meanings of suicide arise out of what people think, feel, and do about it rather than what is simply given in the act.” (234) As a result, the opinions and ideas toward suicide can vary greatly depending on how the society observes a situation.
Prior societies in which the views of the majority oppose the traditional American perspective of suicide help shape the recent emergence of increased suicide acceptance in the United States. In some cases, suicide was never thought of as abnormal, but rather, as honorable. Ancient Greeks and Romans believed suicide to be illustrious if the victim ended his own life to avoid capture by an enemy, humiliation by defeat, or death by an enemy (Portwood 20).
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Typically Buddhist regions such as China or Japan have termed this sort of suicide “daishi” (Kastenbaum 273).
Other such instances include rituals which called for the death of a tribal member following the death of a chieftain. The tribe thought of the man who committed suicide as dignified and courageous. In parts of India, women are expected to kill themselves after their husbands die in order to expel some of his sins (Smith 15).
Even stranger is the practice of a polygamist group known as the Thracians who believed that when a man died his wives were to fight over who was the most loved; the most loved wife then killed herself and was buried with her husband (Portwood 20).
While most Americans disagree with the idea of taking one’s life, some will find justification for suicide should the circumstance provides for it. Those who hold unconventional views may feel there is little wrong with suicide, either because of their culture or ancestral heritage (Smith 15).
Others will refuse to accept suicide, regardless of the state of affairs; most often the individual in this case has a strong religious association. The development of Christianity brought about a change in suicide acceptance. Originally, followers of Christianity though of suicide as a direct violation of the Judeo-Christian belief that one must repent his sins before he may be accepted into the kingdom of heaven (Kastenbaum 267).
The Council of Braga officially condemned suicide by broadening the meaning of the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” (Portwood 22).
St. Thomas Aquinas elaborated on the idea of suicide being a sin by saying that God alone can grant life or death. According to his theory, suicide was a sin of pride because the man was taking into his own hands that which only God should control. Author Jaques Choron suggests that individuals disapprove of suicide for religious reasons do so because they are more accepting of death when it comes as if intended by a higher being (4).
Alan Marks studied religious affiliation as it relates to suicide acceptance and found that those who proclaimed to be religious or attended church regularly were less accepting of suicide than those who did not declare a religious association (1988).
Today, Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States. Such a connection between Americans and Judeo-Christian beliefs may explain the low tolerance Americans seem to have toward suicide.
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Some social perceptions of suicide stem from the ideas of individuals rather than those of entire group. One such individual John Locke would not include “self-destruction” as one of the inherent liberties of man (Kastenbaum 268).
Early Americans used Locke’s theories to create a base on which they formed the government of the United States of America. Evidently, the idea that man does not have the right to end his own life was among the ideas adopted from Locke by the early American government. Today, more than two-hundred years after the United States was established, individuals are questioning the legal aspects concerning their right to die and their right to be assisted in doing so. Another individual who altered the American view of suicide Charles Darwin. Though Darwin made no skepticism about suicide himself, several have perverted his theory of survival of the fittest to show that a suicide victim is weak because he is unable to adapt to and survive in his environment (Kastenbaum 272).
When dealing with a culture as diverse as that of the United States, it’s difficult to determine what is to be considered “normal”. A study conducted by Alan Marks (1988) shows that seventy-one percent of the people interviewed agreed with the statement : “A normal person would not commit suicide.” (Marks 329).
In contrast, Canadian youths are more accepting of suicide as “normal” behavior (Leenaars and Lester 1995).
Quite often, college students are targeted as being members of a high risk group for suicide attempts as college freshmen tend to go through a period during which they feel lonely, confused or uprooted and may experience suicidal thoughts (Gardner 50).
Most view think uncomfortable feelings as such normal in the student’s progression toward adulthood. Why then are suicidal thoughts not also part of this “normal” maturation? External pressures also affect homosexuals or the socially unacceptable. The pressure to be “normal” drives such individuals to suicide (Gardner 55).
The issue of what is considered “normal” will always remain debatable; it is important to recognize that the American society has a tendency of developing an idea about what is normal only after having experienced that which they believe is not.
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One thing that remains constant about suicide acceptance in the United States is that it is highly circumstantial. Most Americans believe in a concept referred to as the “rational” suicide. Lewis, Atkinson and Shovlin (1993) assessed college students and determined that a terminal illness was considered a more rational reason for committing suicide than was a chronic illness; chronic illnesses, however, were more justified than were psychiatric illnesses. In short, students felt that physical pain was a more logical reason for committing suicide than was mental anguish (Lewis 140).
David Lester (1996) found that suicide victims evoked more anger and less pity in study participants than did individuals suffering from cancer or AIDS. His study enforces the idea that the American society is more accepting of illnesses which effect one’s physical health rather than those that effect their mental health, as suicide often does. Margaret Battin elaborated on rational suicides by determining the criteria which justify a rational suicide (132).
These criteria fall into two categories, either nonimpairment criteria or satisfaction of interests criteria. The nonimpairment criteria determine whether or not a suicide attempter is thinking logically when he aspires to kill himself. A nonimpaired victim has an ability to reason, a realistic view of the world, and sufficient information about the situation. An attempter who has satisfied his interests avoids harm to not only himself, but to those around him. According to Battin, a suicide victim can make a rational decision about his death if he has fulfilled the two conditions.
It appears that, as a society, American’s have a tendency to blame situational factors for an individual’s suicide attempt. We excuse the suicide attempt of the teenage girl who always struggles to fit in because we comprehend the amount of stress she is receiving. We overlook the suicide attempt of the high school basketball superstar because we have heard of the extent to which his parents stressed succeeding. At what point does one stop blaming situational factors and start considering the dispositional factors which may have led to a suicide attempt? Robin Lewis and Jeffrey Atkinson (1994) studied suicide acceptance as it relates to suicide cases in which alcohol was involved. They found that female observers rated suicides more negatively when the observer was led to believe that the victim had been consuming alcohol while the male respondents seemed unaffected by such a change in situational factors. Such data shows that though cases do exist in which the dispositional factors of the situation actually hinder the victim, rather than excuse him.
Age and gender play important roles in analyzing the social acceptance of suicide as well. Dealing with age and gender requires analyzing four conditions. These conditions include the age of the victim, the gender of the victim, the age of the observer, and the gender of the observer. Though theorists presume that twenty percent of all Americans experience at least one incident of suicide ideation in their lifetimes, statistics show that the highest risk suicide group consists of adolescents and young adults (Smith 17).
Even though the suicide rate is highest among young adults, Robert Deluty (1988) found that society more often excuses the suicides of the elder members. When a group of participants was asked to express their feelings about specifically described suicide cases, they dubbed the suicides of the elder victims “more permissible”, “wiser”, “stronger”, and “braver” than those of their younger counterparts (Deluty 1988).
Justification for this difference returns us to the discussion regarding the circumstances under which the suicide occurs. Most suicides for elders are brought about as a result of physical distress, whereas those of youngsters are typically the result of mental stress or an inability to adapt. As determined by David Lester (1996), participants viewed suicide victims as more responsible for their condition than those who suffer from cancer. Such findings imply that a diffusion of responsibility occurs when the victim is suffering from a physical illness. Hence, a suicide victim who is also be suffering from a physical illness, would be seen as less liable for his situation. As the elderly are susceptible to physical illnesses, they are often not seen as completely responsible for their suicides. Those who were most tolerant of suicides fell within the age ranges where suicides were most common; young adults (eighteen to thirty-five years old) and elders (sixty years old and older) were more liberal about suicide than were those that fell within the thirty-five to sixty years old range (Marks 1988).
Deluty’s study (1988) of gender biases toward suicide acceptance determined that males were more accepting of suicides than were females. Along those lines, he found that suicides committed by females were labeled “foolish”, “weaker” and “more wrong” in comparison to those of males (Deluty 1988).
Marks determined that more males than females believed a person had the right to commit suicide. One possible explanation for could be, that in comparison to females, thrice the amount of males successfully commit suicide as they use more extreme means of execution than do females (Pahl 1996).
Because suicides occur less frequently among women, the American society may see such suicides as abnormal and therefore determine one to be less acceptable than one committed by a male.
No one can be completely certain why adolescents are more accepting of suicide. Marks (1989) presents several hypotheses concerning this bewildering fact. Adolescents are often beginning to understand the significance of life, so they do not yet understand the great importance of it. Suicide, as is most frequently committed among adolescents, is more familiar to them than it is to their elder counterparts. Adolescents have a more liberal viewpoint and are more accepted of things which vary from the social norms. Adolescents also have fewer responsibilities than adults and may not yet know the ways in which they should be solving “real life” difficulties. Any of these reasons may contribute to the increased acceptance of suicide among the American adolescents.
Since Americans emphasize the act of suicide and the circumstances under which the victim committed suicide, little research has been done to determine the role that the observer’s status may have on his acceptance of suicide. Alan Marks (1989) is among the few to research such factors. Among the factors which he has studied include the educational level of the observer. He found that among high school graduates twenty-five percent of them believed that an individual has the right to take his own life, while only a little less than thirteen percent of non- graduates believed the opposite. He accounts for this difference in saying that a broadened educational system in the United States has fostered a greater acceptance of a wider range of ideas.
The discussion of suicide acceptance does not revolve entirely around the society’s acceptance of it. Such a discussion also involves the suicide victim’s perceptions that what he is doing is agreeable with society. In some cases, it is the victim who is disoriented. When such is true, he is unable to fully understand the sort of decision he is making. At other times, the media presents suicide victims with questionable information. Abraham Matus simplifies the attitude toward the media’s coverage of suicide in saying, “Some schools have been stupid enough to have memorial services for a suicide student. We feel very strongly that in no way should you memorialize suicide, because it then becomes an opening for someone else – because of the attention and the ‘glamour’ of it.” (Gardner 75).
In all aspects of the American media traces of suicide exist. Movies, books and newspapers all contain accounts of people taking their own lives. Movies such as Dead Poet’s Society and Thelma and Loiuse have recently been criticized because they show suicides without discussing the actual consequences of such an act, making it seem as though suicide is a feasible answer to certain problems (Izenberg 1996).
Such movies and programs also depict suicide as glamorous, as they avoid the unsightly realities and traumatizing effects committing suicide can have. People criticize the terminology used by reporters in newspaper and magazine articles relating to suicide; a person who attempts to commit suicide, but does not kill himself is said to have “failed”; whereas a person who does manage to kill himself is “successful” (Hendin 80).
To someone who feels he is successful at very little in his life, this sort of connotation could certainly be tempting. Events such as greater media coverage of suicide or the death of celebrity can act as “trigger factors” (Gardner 73) which have been shown to increase the number of suicides within that time period or geographical vicinity (Hendin 224), proving that the media does indeed have an affect on the American suicide rate. However, the social influence of the media is not always negative. As Dr. Madelyn Gould stated, “It’s not a matter of whether you report it – it’s how you report it.” (Malyszko 1995).
Jennifer Farber supported Gould’s statement when she commented, “Irresponsible reporting can be dangerous,” but then continued on to say, “Silence can be dangerous.” (Malyszko 1995).
Intelligently discussing suicides is not going to cause an enormous outbreak in the number of suicides, but rather educate those who may have been considering suicide. The average citizen will agree that the problem is not dependent on media coverage of suicides, but rather, the sensationalism produced from that coverage.
Though individual judgments concerning suicide vary greatly, the American society as a whole has constructed an opinion about suicide which represents its ideals and basic beliefs. The American view of suicide tends to be a rather lenient one, in for every belief formed another exception will be made. This perspective is sometimes the only logical answer when dealing with a subject as socially challenging as suicide.
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Works Cited
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