Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA10526 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Apr 2001 13:18:34 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745DAB@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: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 13:15:02 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>>The psychological state of suicide (or other states that relate to
extreme behaviours) is (are) not contagious, IMHO.
<Well, the US CDC, the Samaritans, contagion psychologists
(including myself) and the vast majority of suicidologists disagree with
you. >
Lots of institutions, psychologists and criminologist equally
believe pornography and media violence lead to sex crime and violent crime
also. It doesn't mean they're right. There's a basic fallacy at work in
the general hypothesis that suicide contagion research- at its simplest
demonstrates. I know you're saying something more that though.
< OR COURSE, nobody (I hope) believes that suicide is transmitted as
a biological pathogen - rather contagion in the social sciences is defined -
as you suggest - in terms of social legitimation - we use social proof (what
other people are doing) to interpret situations (social cognition) and to
resolve approach-avoidance conflicts. The evidence (suicide levels
regularly jump significantly following media representations of suicide -
like a 1000% increase in paracetamol overdoses following TV hospital soap
portraying such a suicide )suggests that suicide contagion does occur, but
this is very weak evidence because the correlation is made between unrelated
group-level archival stats. >
And indeed correlation does not imply causality. Performing suicde
in a particular way may be influenced by media priming- which I believe you
partly argue in your piece- but suicidal tendencies aren't.
<The problem is therefore demonstrating the plausibility of the
suicide contagion hypothesis ETHICALLY. All I have done here is increase
the plausibility of the suicide contagion hypothesis by showing that our
interpretation of situations as suicidal can be influenced by the presence
of suicide around us.>
Yes but isn't there a significant difference between having our
interpretations of events shaped towards regarding them as suicidal, and
commiting it? That's the big causal problem here. How do media images make
people kill themselves? What's the causal mechanism? _or_ is something else
going on?
<To many, this may seem either obvious or trivial - but it has
significant implications for health policy, and for the understanding of
suicide itself.>
Perhaps. Demonstrate causality, and you have a point.
Vincent
>
>
> Dr Paul Marsden
> tel: +44 (0) 777 95 77 248
> email: paul@viralculture.com
>
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