Essay on The Social Causes of Suicide and Durkheim's Theory

Durkheim’s “suicide” in the zombie apocalypse, by Anna s. Mueller, Seth Abrutyn, and Melissa Osborne talked about how Durkheim's work on suicide ties into the world today. They started off the article with a walking dead analogy showing how a natural disasters such as a zombie apocalypse can tear the world apart. One of the key arguments found in the essay are is integration or regulation more important for keeping a society together? Durkheim would say that while social integration structures give you love, social connections and inclusion in a group, you also need regulation for rules, order and guidance. The article states that slowly over time isolation leads to suicide. Ultimately Durkheim would argue that without support of other people

The interpretivist approach directly contrasts the positivist one and seeks to focus on the meanings of suicide for those involved. Douglas criticises Durkheim's use of official statistics as they are not accurate and recommends qualitative studies to discover the real rate of suicide. The statistics are a result of a coroners label and thus it is not trustworthy in his view. This suggested that cases are decided on "the basis of probability”. Douglas further seeks to find out the meaning of the suicide

For many the concept of teenage suicide is almost always correlated with the psychological mindset of the individuals. However, there is a lot of the factors behind these horrifying events that actually are more sociologically related. These catastrophic events are directly correlated with interactions with the world. The loss of teenagers across the world is increasing and it is a subject that should be touched on in both sciences. Throughout this paper the study of teen suicide in the sociological view will be discussed by going through Emile Durkheim’s studies and the sub groups in which it can occur. These events are related back to such things as social rejection, religious beliefs and social situations. This paper will also touch on the different types of suicide and what the suicides correlate with. The main purpose of this paper is to show how teen suicide is not only a psychological problem with students but to breakdown the areas in which cause these feelings.

Durkheim’s theory consisted of finding a problem which was suicide. He then came up with a dependent variable which was the suicide rate. The social forces became the independent variable. The hypothesis would be what the suicide rate would vary with. When he collected his date Durkheim would go into detail about each individuals life and any uprising problems that he could find. He would then analyze the data into four categories which are the three most common types of suicide (egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide and anomic suicide). After looking at the date and matching it up with the proper suicide type Durkheim would then draw conclusions or form a theory.

The first sociologist to theorize on suicide and its sociological interpretations was Emile Durkheim. Durkheim worked during the late 1800’s identifying social structures as the key determinant in self-destructive behaviour. In his work Suicide: A study in Sociology, Durkheim stated that “suicide rates increase when a society’s value system breaks down.”2 Durkheim believed that the shared values of a society and the mechanisms in place that ensure that its members adhere to these values, is interpreted as a person’s “social structure.” Durkheim suggested two basic factors in social structure that heavily influence the incidence of suicide. These are regulation and integration. He believed that an individual needs to become part of, and find direction in his own society. Without these factors in place, suicide becomes a common substitute. Teens are often anxious about fitting in to their society (especially among peer groups) so it is clear that integration is essential to adolescence. Durkheim also suggested that it is these two factors

The Suicide theory proposed by Emile Durkheim (1951), explains that because of the numerous adverse socioeconomic factors that operate in the life of the young Black male, many give into the negative socio-genic force of illicit drug culture as either a psychological or physiological escape from their reality. The development of deeper feelings of low self-worth which can cause a vicious cycle of self-defeating behavior which will cause suicidal behavior.

Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist credited with developing the functionalist theory. He believed that society should be viewed as a structure with each person playing a role, creating, to some extent a “functional” society. He also stated that society is held together through mutual acceptance of various norms and values. Durkheim published “Suicide” in 1897, which as the title suggests is centred round suicide and the patterns of suicide within society, a subject which at the time was seen as taboo. He believed that sociological influences were contributing factors of suicide, although the act itself is considered by society to be, one of individual choice. Durkheim also suggested that “anomie” played a pivotal role in suicide.

Durkheim went into detail about three-suicide types: anomic, altruistic, and egotistic. Anomic suicide makes individuals feel lost or alone in society. For example teen suicide, the teen cannot relate to another individual. Altruistic suicide is based on excessive regulations of individuals by social force. For example political or social pressure makes and individual feel disconnected with society or themselves. Egotistic suicide is a total detachment from society. He argues that suicide is a social factor. The social factors he argues are social surroundings and whether the individual is integrated in social structure. He does state as well does Mills that men have a higher rate of suicide than woman do. Mills believed that men were unable to make the connection between social and individual life. Durkheim and Mills both have different perspectives however they both believed that our society and individuals needed to make a connection in order to

When it comes to suicide often as individuals we describe suicide as something that is caused by an individuals experience that may include how someone lives, personalities, and religion. While also including that there are no biological influence that may be passed on from genetics, genes, and heredity that can come from depressions. However, Durkheim argues against that suicide is caused by social factors and how involved or integrated the individuals is in connection to society. Usually when asked why someone decided to kill himself or herself we usually think of what he/she was thinking about in their mind. Almost pertaining to the individuals decision we wouldn’t be thinking about society as something that could have caused suicide but

Emile Durkheim was well –known sociologist famous for his views on the structures of society. During his theory development, He discovered four kinds of suicide committed by people in the society in which they are living in. Durkheim developed a theoretical typology of suicide to explain the differing effects of social factors and how they might lead to suicide. They are as follows:

‘Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being, one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism?.’’ (Durkheim, 1933; p40) Durkheim’s Theories on suicide, while questioned by many such as Whitney Pope and Nick Danigelis (Pope, Danigelis, 1981; pp495-516) are still held as the most widely regarded when referencing suicide. His ideology on Altruism, Egoism and Collective Consciousness can be applied in any theological timeframe to access and determine the reasoning’s behind

Traditionally, suicide was thought to be a purely individual decision but French sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that the phenomenon had a social dimension. He believed in the influence of society on the individual and that if anything can explain that relation, it is suicide. His use of the data of suicide, not specific cases and reports, to study the societal trends reveals his true subject of study: society as a whole and its role in the individual experience. Durkheim uses the study of suicide via the quantitative methodological approach as a tool to study society as a broader whole.

Durkheim's Work in Sociology " Some studies maybe more recent, but Durkheim's work remains the most significant Sociological analysis of Suicide in modern societies" Assess the extent to which Sociological arguments and evidence support this claim.

David Emile Durkheim was a well known French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher. He is acknowledged for his establishment of social theory which views sociology as a natural science subject to empirical study. His book “suicide” was one of the most prominent books in the field of sociology. In this book he speaks about how the suicide rate differs among the Protestants and Catholics saying that there is less number of suicides among the Catholics as they have stronger social control. According to Durkheim, Catholics are more open to the idea of accepting new member in the society as compare to the Protestants. There were two criticisms for this interpretation. Firstly, the data that he collected were from early researchers and secondly this was only limited to the German speaking Europe. But despite its limitations his theory was one of the

Functionalism provided the answer to this he believed. Durkheim also theorised the idea of there being ‘social facts’ “Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual . . . it must above all have an object all its own.” Durkheim, E. (2005). Durkheim's theory on suicide is a perfect example of his work on the idea of social facts. The act of suicided is view as being a very individualist act, one that the individual makes for themselves. However Durkheim did not believe this was the case, he believed that suicide rates, although reflecting individual choice to an extent, were reflective of a social reality, that they existed independent of the individual with factors such as religion, family, political structure and social cohesion playing key roles in affecting suicide trends. Bolden, L. Bowman, M, Kaufman, S. Lindemann, D. (2003) He argued that because suicide rates have a floating point, that is an average number of suicided per year, per nation, it indicates a social fact or reality beyond the