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18 Cards in this Set
- Front
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positivists theories on suicide: Durkheim |
Positivists: sociology is a science as we can observe society and explain actions through cause and effect
Durkheim: discovered patterns in suicide and its social causes
1. suicide is socially constructed 2. suicide is a social fact 3. not an individual act
+ suicide shouldn't have any patterns if it was a personal act |
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Theories Durkheim rejects |
> D studied suicide to prove that it cannot be explained by psychology
> e.g. Jews suffered from more psychological problems than protestants but committed less suicide - Psychology was in early stages at the time - has expanded since > Rejected the theory that climate has an effect on suicide rates + suicide rates remain mostly constant over time |
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Durkheim's quantitative findings |
1. Different societies have different rates
2. Rates varied between social groups
+ e.g Catholic had lower rates than Protestants and married women with children lower than singled or widowed
3. Suicide rates within a society remained more or less constant over time
+ changes coincided with other changes e.g. increase with economic depression |
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Durkheim's explanations for suicide (two Social facts) |
1. social integration: a sense of belonging to a group and obligation to its members > strong bond and sense of duty to others 2. moral regulation: the extent to which individuals' actions and desires are kept in check by norms and values > no socially defined goals + rules desires are infinite and unsatisfying > At the right amounts these create social solidarity but an imbalance can lead to high suicide rates) e.g. detaining people for too long without charge |
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4 types of suicide: Egoistic |
1. egoistic (more common in industrial societies) > weak social integration e.g: Catholics have a lower rate than protestants because they are tightly integrated into shared ritual + Marxists agree with alienation factor i.e. w/c not integrated but exploited + homeless 9 x more likely to commit suicide due to lack of integration - many homeless have addictions and psychological disorders |
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4 types of suicide: Altruistic |
2. Altruistic > too much integration > individuals sacrifice themselves out of duty to their group e.g:
+ balanced integration supports Hirschi's bonds of attachment theory: more connections to society = less inclination to crime |
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4 types of suicide: anomic |
3. Anomic suicide: (Anomie = normlessness) > weak social regulation > norms and values became outdated or blurred from sudden change > individuals feel unguided e.g. economic booms (expectations/desires rise quicker than they are filled) and slumps (wall st stock exchange crash 1929 lead to great depression 1930s) |
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4 types of suicide: Fatalistic |
4. fatalistic suicide > extreme moral regulation > societies control individuals completely like slaves or prisoners, in concentration camps. >individual sees no possible way to improve his or her life e.g:
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suicide in modern and traditional societies |
modern societies:
Traditional societies:
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Evaluation of Durkheim's theory of suicide |
+ praised for positive data and scientific aims - unreliable statistics:
- lack of operationalisation:
- lack of validity:
- overestimated the role of religion
- interactionists view: can't categorize human behaviour, too reductionists - interpretivists: seek the meaning of suicide for those involved |
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interactionist theories on suicide: Douglas |
Douglas: interested in the meaning of suicide for deceased and the way coroners label death. Douglas' criticisms of Durkheim
> Integration effects the likelihood of a death being labelled as a suicide e.g. a good level of integration that causes low suicide rates may be due to many family/friends - cover up suicide due to guilt/ destroy evidence2. Actor’s meanings and qualitative data: Durkheim ignores that suicide means something to suicidal, views it as fixed meaning for all e.g. suicide is contextually and culturally bound in meaning Douglas: classify each suicide using qualitative data (suicide notes, diaries, interviews with survivors and family.) |
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4 categories of suicide according to Douglas |
Douglas: these can vary culturally |
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Evaluation of Douglas |
- Douglas classifies suicide based on a supposed meaning (how is his interpretation of a death any better than the coroners?) -Sainsbury and Barraclough: effect of coroners exaggerated (suicide rates for immigrants in US correlated with rates from home countries, despite different coroners) - Atkinson: we can never truly know the true suicide rate - Douglas is inconsistent: says coroners view /statistics are wrong but also says we can find meanings (but we can't know if a 'suicide' is a suicide as all we have to go are coroners reports.) |
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Interpretivist theories on suicide: Atkinson |
Ethnomethodology: argues that social reality is just a construct of its members
>Atkinson: + agrees with Douglas- suicide rates are coroners interpretations - disagrees with Douglas- we can't find the deceased's meaning of their suicide > focuses on how coroners categorize deaths using qualitative methods > coroners and officials categorize death as suicide using commonsense theory > e.g. factors such as suicide notes, mode of death, location, life history and mental health affects the chance of death being labeled as a suicide |
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Evaluation of Atkinson |
-Hindress: objective truth needed not interpretations if there is only interpretations of the social world, ethnomethodologists' accounts are no more than interpretations + most ethnomethodologists admit their accounts are just interpretations |
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Realism and suicide: Taylor |
- suicide rates can't be taken as valid - coroners theories influence their verdicts > e.g. in a study 32 died after being hit by a tube train over half were deemed suicides without conclusive evidence + believes we can explain suicide/ discover real patterns and causes but using case studies |
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Taylors 4 types of suicide |
1. Submissive suicide: certainty about oneself (they know they have no future-Terminal illness)
2. Thanatation suicide: uncertainty about oneself, (uncertain about what others think) Risk taking 3. Sacrifice suicide: certainty about others (they want a person who has made their life unbearable feel guilty and responsible) 4. Appeal suicides: involves uncertainty about others (doubts their importance to others), takes an overdose and hopes that they are found |
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Evaluation of Taylor and realism |
+ examines both successful and unsuccessful attempts + explains the severity of a suicide and why some leave notes and not others - theory is based on interpretations of the actors meanings -can't validate - case study: small sample size hard to generalize - doesn't link to wider social issue like Durkheim |
