Другое : Economic and sociological analysis of suicide )
Economic and sociological analysis of suicide )
There are many reasons why people
commit suicide. People can decide to commit suicide themselves or be pushed to
do it. Most of the factors, in reality can be explained by the Cost/benefit
theory of Economics of Human Behaviour which says that people will do anything
until Marginal costs will exceed Marginal benefits.
RELIGIOUS FACTOR - One of the most
powerful social factors determining a level of suicides is the religion. Since
according to Cost/benefit theory people try to minimize their costs while maximizing
benefits and will only do something if Marginal benefits exceed Marginal costs.
We can assume that if religious leaders would promise better life and god’s
forgiveness of all sins people committed, some people under psychological
stress would believe them and commit suicide since for the expected benefits
would exceed expected costs. This is widely practiced in Islam. According to
Islam to die for Allah is the greatest thing a living Muslim can do.
In Judaism on the other hand, value
of life is emphasized, and consequently for the sake of preservation of life
the devout Jews are allowed to break all religious laws, except for refusal of
the god, murder and sexual relationship between relatives. The benefits of life
are emphasized in Judaism and for Jews costs of suicide are large than benefits
since belief in afterlife is not practiced.
In
Christian countries it is a shame to attempt to destroy yourself according to
the words of Bible. People who attempted suicide faced refusal of society to
accept them and were buried on the edges of cemeteries or by the roads when
died. Thus social and religious costs of committing suicide in those countries
is very high and are greater than benefits of facing God in Heaven. This is one of the main reasons of the lowest level of
suicides now in Italy, Spain and number of the Latin American countries - the
huge influence of Catholicism in these countries. It is established by the
modern researchers, that as a whole in countries, where the influence of
religion is weaker and religious norms connected in particular with suicide are
more humanely , the percentage of suicide attempts is higher. Because in
countries with high religious influence God’s punishment for killing yourself
is much higher and people are afraid to “sin” by even thinking about suicide.
In World
History there were a lot of people who had the gift of persuasion. These people
could persuade anyone to do anything and even commit suicide. These individuals
often gathered citizens under some idea, attacked these citizens emotionally to
break their will in order to gain full control over the minds of these people.
These evil masterminds often attempted mass suicide in connection to some
important “religious” date or even public holiday. People believed these
individuals because of the promises of great benefits of dying or of simply
belonging to some particular religious group and rejecting the rest of the
world. After some time the perception of persuaded people was so greatly
distorted that the benefit of simply seeing ‘the master’ was unsurpassed by any
of the cost they might have incurred.
The
cost of suicide also increases when considering public opinion about suicide:
“What will other people think of me? “. Traditional thought would include God
as one of “the other persons” who might have and express disapproving attitudes[1].
Finally, attendance at religious services potentially gives individuals access
to a support network. Those without a support network are most likely to commit
suicide.[2]
The support network brings a lot of benefits to people, things like new
friendships, affiliation, understanding. This increased benefits of life
compared to benefits of suicide and made people change their mind to stay
alive.
THE SOCIAL FACTORS - Other
kind of suicide factors is directly connected to the social reasons, is this
case, public situation of any group of people or concrete individual for many
independent or personal reasons is so hard and intolerable, in other words the
cost of living through another day becomes so high and exceeds benefits by such
a great amount that the suicide becomes the only real way to get free from
sufferings. Things that raise thoughts of suicide can be: Need of money and
work, need for affiliation, death of a beloved person, realization of being
unable to change things and never-ending struggle for existence. The rate of
suicide in the world can be reflected by the world economic stability. During
recessions many people loose their jobs and businesses and have to sell their
homes and are forced to follow poor style of life. In 1840-1850 the claim that
suicide was an urban phenomenon in Paris and that it was related to poverty and
occurred more frequently among laboring poor were repeated by many writers[3]. For these people not only
emotional but also monetary costs were enormous. This might have caused
depression, sorrows and have led to suicide attempts. It has also proven that
in big cities rate of suicide is much higher than in countryside. According to
St. Thomas Aquinas “Every man belongs to the community. Hence by killing
himself he injures the community”[4].
Thus, suicide of person imposes high marginal cost on his friends and
relatives. It is very important to us what other people think of us and thus we
will weight costs and benefits of dying before attempting suicide.
Costs and
benefits of love may be another social factor of suicide. In Johann Goethe’s
"The Sorrows of Young Werther" the main character decides to die
because the woman that he loves does not love him back. For him the cost of
realization that his expected benefits of being together with her is very high
and in addition to that the cost of seeing her happy with someone else made the
character to shoot himself, for him that was the only way to stop his sorrows and
the benefit of dying was much higher for him at that point. Unfortunate love of
Romeo and Juliet for example led to their suicide, or in “Ethan Frome” the main
character decides to slide into a tree with his beloved woman when his wife
refused to let him go. For these characters the cost of living apart from each
other was so high that they decided to die to be together in another life.[5] Finally many young people kill
themselves every year because of their love to some celebrity. Many attempt
suicide after their object of affection died or also committed suicide. They do
so because of a high expected benefit of being with him/ her in the afterlife
and high cost of living without that person in their lives. E.g. watching that
person on TV and realizing that he/she is gone. In the past, a person had to
kill himself/herself when his/her spouse died. Examples are: wife of a
well-known in the Roman history Caesar Brut swallowed pieces of burning coal
when she found out about death of her husband. In India the custom “sati” -
self-burning of the widow together with a body of the husband down to XIX of
century was not simply sample for imitation, but also obligatory ritual[6]
PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS - such as
depression and panic. Several
studies in recent years have suggested that people with panic disorder are more
likely to attempt suicide than patients with other psychiatric conditions. One
explanation was that panic disorder, when combined with clinical depression,
made people more prone to suicide[7]. "Depression is a very significant predictor of whether
or not a patient with panic disorder will engage in some kind of suicide
behavior. But depression alone doesn't account for it all" said professor
Brad Schmidt of University of Ohio[8].
The study also proved positive relationship between level of expected anxiety
and suicide attempts rate. For these people the cost of doing virtually
anything is risen by the level of worry and if for a long time, marginal cost
of living through another day is much higher than benefits, people can decide
to voluntary leave this world.
Another factor is human pride and
self-honor. In some countries like Japan and Korea honor is very important self
perception, especially for men. There is still a tradition of “hara-kiri”,
voluntary self-destruction because of failure to complete some family or social
obligation. For men who “failed” the cost of living with their “failure” was
too high. They couldn’t look into the eyes of people who they failed and the
only solution that was considered was “hara-kiri”. The benefit of escaping
from shame was so high that these men ( mostly soldiers- samurai) did not even
think about physical pain and pain of their friends and relatives. During war
times high ranked soldiers were given a chance to kill themselves in order to
save their honor and die like a hero.
METHODS AND
TRENDS OF SUICIDE
Methods used to commit suicide vary on sex and regional bases.
E.g. death by firearms is more common in rural areas where the availability of
guns is higher.[9]
People attempt to lower the cost of the actual effort, thus use methods that
are available to them immediately instead of spending time and money and other
resources. The most common non-fatal suicide attempts in both sexes are drug
overdoses and poisonings[10].
There are differences in the spread of rate of suicide depending on age: The
facts about senior people are clear: the illnesses and loneliness, decline of
vital forces and absence of iridescent hopes better condition of a body and
spirit cause dramatic emotions "of socially active old age ". At this
age the choice is between battling an increasing avalanche of diseases and
illnesses or intentional death. Eventhough there are some benefits (e.g.
watching grandchildren grow), the cost of living is much higher. Thus the
tradeoff between life and death is not so large. Factors such as social
pressures, rejection of people in the same social group, e.g. classmates, work
partners, etc. are major causes of suicide among middle age and youth. Young
people can sometimes commit suicide just because of a disagreement inside
family.
BIBLIOGRAPHY / RESOURCES
1.
“A
handbook for the study of suicide” edited by Seymour Perlin. Oxford University
Press (1975)
2.
“Suicide
and Homicide” Andrew F. Henry and James F. Short Jr. The Free Press, New York (
1968)
3.
#"#">www.religioustolerance.org Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
5.
www.befrienders.org/info/statistics.htm .
Befrienders International Suicide Statistics
6.
www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/People/Health/health01.html
Suicides, and suicide rate by sex and by age group at Statistics Canada.
[1]
“A Handbook of the study of suicide” edited by Seymour Perlin, pg. 62
[2]
Quoted from #"#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title="">[3]
“A Handbook of the study of suicide” edited by Seymour Perlin, pg. 22
[4]
“A Handbook of the study of suicide” edited by Seymour Perlin, pg. 67
[5]
Conclusions are based on the stories of “Ethan Frome”, “Romeo and Juliet” and
“The Sorrows of Young Werther”
[6]
Information is taken from Ancient history books
[7]
From: #"#_ftnref8"
name="_ftn8" title="">[8]
#"#_ftnref9"
name="_ftn9" title="">[9]
www.religioustolerance.org
[10]
www.religioustolerance.org
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