Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA07836 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 17 Apr 2001 15:04:20 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DA4@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 15:00:55 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Kids commit suicide for the same reasons other people do- severe depression,
usually as a result of severe personal trauma (bereavement, abuse) and/or
psychological disorders like depression. With kids there's the added
problem that many of them are not in any position to do anything about the
situation that is leading them to their state of mind (e.g. kids being
abused by parents).
In order for suicides to be truly contagious one has to surely demonstrate
that the conditions which conventionally lead to suicidal tendencies are
what are being transferred. I don't see any evidence of that.
What may happen, in apparent contagion cases, however, is that suicidal
people may have their thoughts legitimated by hearing about another suicide,
but what won't happen is that a non-suicidal (or near suicidal person) will
hear of a suicide and then go and commit it themselves.
If this were true, then by default it should be true of other extreme
behaviours also- murder for example. Yet how many murders do people
hear/read/see through the media relative to the number they actually commit?
If that souns ludicrous, that's because it is. The psychological state of
suicide (or other states that relate to extreme behaviours) is (are) not
contagious, IMHO.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kenneth Van Oost
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2001 8:45 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Wade T.Smith <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
> To: memetics list <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 7:39 PM
> Subject: Re: Is Suicide Contagious? A Case Study in Applied Memetics
> > On 04/12/01 13:24, J. R. Molloy said this-
> > >The phenomenon of suicide contagion is demonstrated
> > >experimentally.
> > >From my reading of this paper, it is not suicide contagion that is
> > demonstrated (what a debacle of ethical research _that_ would be!!), but
> > _the perception of suicidal tendencies_ that is being experimented upon
> > and demonstrated herein.
> > In short, an example of intentionally primed observation, long known
> > among magicians and conmen. This is a well-known effectual tool.
>
> << I am not gonna argue the basic arguments of this post, but I would like
> to comment on the paper written by Paul Marsden.
> My " experience " with suicide / suicide contaigon leaves me to think that
> suicide contaigon is indeed a fact, but more in the way of " association
> ".
> Memes of suicide / suicide contaigon are like TJ Olney describes in his
> paper
> " An alternative approach to Gender and Consumer Behavior: Memetics "
> more or less the expressions of relationships between two or more memes.
>
> I have long wondered why young children ( between 11 and 16) committed
> suicide. At first glance there was no reason, but after more
> investigations
> and after a lot of reading I am almost convinced of the fact that two set
> of memes are playing an important role.
> The first set is the memes already held by the kid. Those are those of the
> parents (genetically !?), of teachers, of family, friends. The last
> category
> is
> due to some research perhaps the most important of all. Many people
> believe that they themselves raise their kids where in fact their friends
> are.
>
> You can easily foresee the importance of that fact :- suicide/ suicide
> con-
> taigon- meme transmission is more substantial between friends that it were
> to be between child and parents. Exceptions to the rule.....fill in the
> blanks.
>
> The second set of memes are those which the kid acquires. Those are
> propagated by the media, friends, by teaching, by learning etc.
> When those two set of memes come together and do form as an example
> a contradiction, a contrast, an opposition in the kids mind, the child
> could
> commit suicide or does try to.
> Of course, this is a very simple explanation and most of the cases are not
> like that at all.
> IMO, a third set of memes plays along the first two.
>
> In memetic theory is common to say that some memes which are succes-
> ful are not to be beneficial to their hosts. It is IMO that third set
> where
> we
> must concentrate ourselves onto.
> Not only those sets of memes can easily be succesfully copied but along-
> side with their propagation-method they speed up their propagation- rate
> also. It is there where we have to look for the reasons why kids commit
> suicide.
> You can see this as an Evangelism- Meme as TJ Olney calls them.
> It is in fact the meme or parts of itself which are convincing people/
> kids
> to commit suicide. And IMO, they do that faster and faster due to their
> possibilities of transmission and in some way the meme makes herself
> more important so that kids tell other kids about her.
> The suicide of young rockstars, actors, etc are " convincing strategies ".
>
> On an evolutionary basis, we could put this in some kind of diagram I
> suppose where suicidal tendencies/ reasons were connected with the
> possibilites of suicide meme- transmission.
> Along side this, the possibility also exists that crisisses or the
> severity
> of the
> crisis plays a major part. As were the former of social stresses were in
> the early days none to zero the latter shows that nowadays those are
> extremely high.
> An new form in which the suicide meme or the suicide contaigon- meme
> would express herself would be as suicidal depression, where the fact
> of social stresses is spirit away by the succesful generation of other
> meme-
> sets. One of those is the " positive " tendency to work hard(er) at school
> would mean a carrier- breaktrough later.
> Another example is the " positive " tendency that both parents have to
> work to stand up to their social status, which in turn is again a
> consequence
> of social/ cultural/ fiancial/ commercial stresses/ memes.
>
> The bias where I work with to understand this all, is by Van Heeringen,
> a Dutch professor who works in the Academic Clinic, Ghent.
> I suppose he has a webside...
>
> Best,
>
> Kenneth
>
> ( I am, because we are) like virusses
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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