The Media and Suicide: A Nonadditive Model, 1968–1980

Unlike previous work, the present investigation tests a nonadditive model of the suggestion/imitation. Suicide stories are predicted to have the greatest effect on suicide in times of high suicidogenic conditions. The latter are measured in terms of unemployment. Data on the American monthly suicide rate are analyzed using Cochrane Orcutt techniques. While support was found for the nonadditive model based on an interaction effect between media stories and the rate of unemployment, it did not prove more powerful than an additive model. Future work is needed, however, for a systematic testing of the nonadditive thesis.     

Suicide: Media Impacts in War and Peace, 1910–1920

The literature of the impact of publicized suicide stories on suicide has neglected the influence of social contexts. In the present study, the context of a popular war was inspected. A Durkheimian perspective was tested, wherein the context of war would lower suicide through promoting social integration. Suicide stories in such times should have less of an impact than in times of peace. Data were collected on widely publicized suicide stories during the World War I decade. A Cochrane—Orcutt iterative time series analysis found that publicized suicide stories during war had no impact on suicide. In contrast, peacetime suicide stories were associated with an increase of 48 suicides. This is significant, since the electronic media were nonexistent and hence could not reinforce the publicity in the printed media, as they do today. Further analysis of the relationship found similar results for New York City.     

California's Suicide Decline, 1970–1990

From 1970 to 1990 California experienced a 32% decline in suicide, which was particularly pronounced among women, non-whites, the young, and urban dwellers. Suicide declines of over 50% were recorded in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and large decreases occurred in other coastal counties. Additionally, California was the only one of 51 states to show a consistent decline in teenage and young-adult suicide (accompanied by an 88% decrease in teenage drug and other poisoning deaths). Initial investigation of death certification, accident and homicide trends, economic measures, and prevention efforts did not produce an explanation for a suicide decrease of California's magnitude. However, the state does display anomalous trends in certain social measures (reduced divorce, rising non-White population, and rising homicide) that point to multifactorial hypotheses including demographic changes and changed attitudes toward violence. Review of the accuracy of past suicide certification procedures nationally is also indicated.     

Suicide Rates in the World: 1950–2004

The cross‐country differences and the trends of suicide rates in 71 countries from 1950 to 2004 are described. The data are from the World Health Organization's Mortality Database. It shows that suicide rates vary greatly across countries, even within the same region or at similar levels of development. Random‐effect models were used to examine the between‐country and within‐country stabilities in suicide rates. The results show that more than 90% of the variance in suicide rates is due to between‐country differences, suggesting suicide rates display a strong temporal stability.     

The Frequency of Suicide in Individual Danish Birth Cohorts, 1922–1991

In recent years many suicidologists have based their epidemiological studies on suicide on theories assuming that people born within the same period of time will follow the same suicidal patterns throughout their lives, and that variations in the annual rate of suicide will, therefore, reflect systematic differences between cohorts. Cohort analysis carried out on Danish data showed, however, that although some differences could be found as to the course of events during the life span of the cohorts and also when the material was adjusted for sex, no significant differences could be found between various birth cohorts in the total rates of suicide. The authors argue that the reason for this is that a cohort effect is only one of three dimensions of an analytical tool, namely, Age–Period–Cohort (APC) analysis, and that the balance between the three effects changes over time.     

Doctoral Dissertations on Suicide From U.S. and Canadian Institutions of Higher Learning, 1990–1995

Doctoral dissertations on suicide from 1990 to 1995 appearing in Volumes 51–55 and the 1995 issues of Volume 56 of Dissertation Abstracts International are listed. A total of 214 dissertations from 119 North American institutions of higher learning (110 in the United States and 9 in Canada) are compiled and organized by the year in which the dissertation was completed. An average of 40 dissertations were completed annually for the years 1990–1994. The institutions granting the most doctorates are indicated. More than half of the doctoral projects involve topics of youth suicide, with only small numbers of dissertations on any other specific topic.     

Classification of Attempted Suicide: A Review of Empirical Studies, 1963–1993

A review was carried out on empirical studies on the classification of attempted suicide over the period 1963-1993. Our aim was to investigate whether there is research evidence for a valid classification of homogeneous subgroups of suicide attempters. After assessment of the research quality, 32 studies were selected for comparison. Although there is lack of consistency among the studies, indications were found for two clearly distinguished subgroups characterized by mild and severe suicide attempts, which constitute the opposite poles of a one-dimensional concept of severity.     

Of Maslow,motives, and managers: The hierarchy of needs in American business, 1960–1985

This paper examines the impact of psychologist Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs in American management. I trace how a roster of management experts translated the hierarchy of needs into management through case studies of job redesign programs at Texas Instruments and marketing firm Young & Rubicam's management training. The hierarchy of needs resonated with management, I argue, because it seemed to offer both a concrete guide for management, with practical implications for designing management training and work structures, alongside a broader social theory that purported to explain changing social values and economic circumstances in America. For the management theorists who invoked the hierarchy of needs, the corporation served as both the prime site for people to fulfill their higher psychological needs and the ideal site to study and cultivate motivation. This article contributes to histories of psychology that show how psychology became a prominent resource in American public life.     

American social scientists and the domestication of “class” 1929–1955

This essay examines social scientists' newfound interest in the American class system and their changing conceptions of “class” in the years from 1929 until 1955. Specifically, it compares Robert and Helen Lynd's views with those of W. Lloyd Warner. Emphasis shifted in class analysis from occupation and income to social acceptance and cultural lifestyle, and moral outrage over the inequities enshrined in the American class system gave way to a functionalist explanation that class differences were the inevitable by-products of a complex division of labor. Once the class system was held to integrate rather than to divide Americans, classes came to be seen as rungs on a ladder on which Americans were constantly moving up and down. Divisive connotations were thus played down in this peculiarly American conception of class, and the discovery of class differences was squared with the venerable belief in American classlessness.     

Female Labor Force Participation,Status Integration and Suicide, 1950–1969

ABSTRACT: Using Census data covering the 29 year period starting in 1950 this, study tests the hypothesis that (1) female labor force participation may result in more married women committing suicide due to the strain of household and outside working responsibilities and that (2) female labor force participation may also be associated with higher rates of male suicide due to the fact that it represents apparent failure of the husband as sole breadwinner ( Stack, 1978 ). Results show that during the 1950's male suicide was not associated with growth in the female labor force, but female suicide was. During the 1960s male suicide was negatively associated with female labor force participation, but the opposite was true for females. It is argued that working women represented a weakening of norms concerning sex roles. Apparently as more and more women entered the labor force, role conflict did ensue, but contrary to the above hypothesis it only increased female suicide potential. These results are discussed in terms of different normative sex role contexts of the 1950s and the 1960s.     

A Historical Survey of Police Suicide in Queensland,Australia, 1843–1992

Police suicide research has yielded inconsistent results. An opportunity presented to survey Queensland police suicides in a historical context and add to the existing literature; the study describes changes in police suicide over time, the associated characteristics, and opportunities for intervention. Suicides were examined from the origins of police in Queensland in 1843 up to 1992. Suicide rates were higher earlier, around 60 per 100,000, declining to around 20 per 100,000 recently. The recent rate is lower than most other police studies but the same as the general community (employed). Most suicides were associated with psychological and physical ill health, alcohol abuse, and domestic problems, in keeping with general community surveys. However, occupational problems were more evident than is generally the case. The proximity in time of disciplinary events and suicides was striking. Future studies should explore the interactions between these factors.