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Why People Die By Suicide
The studies on those who attempt suicide multiple times and on the vigorous association between past and future suicidality (even accounting for "kitchen sink" variables) are consistent with the view that people habituate to self-injury and thereby gain the ability to enact increasing severe suicidal behaviors.
That is the main argument of Thomas Joiner's Why People Die by Suicide. Here is the book's home page. Here is an excerpt. Here is a summary. By the way, athletes, who are used to harming themselves, commit suicides at relatively high rates.
The traditional economic approach compares the costs and benefits of staying alive, with option value thrown in for good measure. It seems more realistic to treat people as having periodic suicidal urges, but (fortunately) usually lacking the capability to execute those urges. Why some people find reason to work their way "up the ladder" of capabilities is the next question. Perhaps the mechanisms behind suicide have more to do with employment, and with economic growth, than we used to think. Rather than making an analysis of suicide more like modern economics, should economics become more like the theory of suicide?
More people die by suicide in New York City than are murdered; here are twenty facts about death. Have I mentioned? It seems to be "Death Day" over at MarginalRevolution this lovely Tuesday...
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 29, 2006 at 05:32 AM in Books, Science | Permalink
Comments
It's been claimed that dead human bodies decompose more slowly these days because of all the chemical preservatives in food. The claim sounds awfully urban-legendish, though I don't know if it's ever been proven or disproven.
Posted by: Peter at Aug 29, 2006 10:31:45 AM
If someone attempted sucide by method x and they continued to live (i.e. the suicide attempt failed), why
would they try the same method again? They'd try "harder" next time. If 10 pills didn't work the first
time, then the next attempt will involve more than 10 pills. Unless it is a "cry for attention" suicide
with no real intent on causing one's death. But as a matter of course, each suicide attempt should logically
be more dangerous than the next. And yes, suicide can be a logical, rational action.
Posted by: bruce at Aug 29, 2006 10:32:33 AM
Why is it that the people that have the most think it would be the best solution to die when the homeless guy under the bridge will try to live forever. If someone is going to take the suscide route if they really mean it I think you will sucedde if not then you dont' really wont to die they just wont attention.
Posted by: Matthew Ponder at Aug 29, 2006 11:23:41 AM
Another possibility is that suicidal people are in such intense and unrelenting pain that the added increment of pain involved in finally "ripping off the bandage" seems less significant than it would to healthy people. (Setting to one side the question whether pain can be divided into "physical" and "mental.")
Posted by: Guest 15 at Aug 29, 2006 11:27:31 AM
Seems like there was an interview with Gary Becker a while back in the FT where he mentioned that he was working on a theory of suicide. Or how to tell the difference between a "cry for help" and a genuine failed suicide attempt.
Posted by: Lee Beck at Aug 29, 2006 11:32:01 AM
Here's an economic/evolutionary theory of depression (which includes some portion of suicide attempts and suicides) that I find pretty convincing:
http://itb.biologie.hu-berlin.de/~hagen/papers/Dahlem.pdf
He does a nice job of explaining the idea in an interview here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/stories/s1077027.htm
Posted by: Slocum at Aug 29, 2006 11:52:29 AM
Tyler,
One thing that you left out of your collection of links is that Mental Health Professionals have relatively high rates of suicide.
I wonder if Economists have a worse than average record at managing their own money?
Posted by: The Chieftain of Seir at Aug 29, 2006 12:17:45 PM
That reminds me an article from MIT about whether suicide at MIT is a poisson process. Ofcourse, as one might expect with such a specific study, they ran into the brick wall called "insufficient data"
philip.greenspun.com/research/suicide-at-mit.pdf
Posted by: rao at Aug 29, 2006 12:21:08 PM
"More people die by suicide in New York City than are murdered."
This is not correct. In 2004, the homicide rate in New York City was 7.0 per 100,000. I can't find the suicide rate for 2004 but in 2001 it was 4.8. Given 8 million residents, something like 175 more people die by homicide than by suicide.
Posted by: pelkabo at Aug 29, 2006 12:57:58 PM
My bad. I find the suicide rate for New York City is around 7.5. Never mind!
Posted by: pelkabo at Aug 29, 2006 1:10:12 PM
Hmm, here at UChicago people seem to think the suicide rate is high, but I haven't been able to find any evidence supporting that. The most popular major is economics, but that's probably not relevant either. Looking at universities in general, the suicide rate is much lower than that of the general population, which makes sense.
Re: economics of suicide:
Deadweight loss?
Posted by: Currence at Aug 29, 2006 1:12:39 PM
Regarding economic growth and suicide,
a curiosity is that the generally high
income Nordic countries also have high
suicide rates. This is often used by
critics of those societies as evidence
of what rotten failures they are. OTOH,
they also tend to come out high on those
official happiness studies. Not at all
clear what is up there, although some of
it may be seasonal affect disorder during
those long and cold winter nights.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Aug 29, 2006 1:39:39 PM
Even worse is all those depressing nordic countries took over the metal scene from the NWOBHM and bay area thrash bands it rightfully belonged to.
Posted by: TGGP at Aug 29, 2006 2:07:17 PM
Tyler Cowen wrote: "Rather than making an analysis of suicide more like modern economics, should economics become more like the theory of suicide?"
Lending a whole new meaning to the phrase, "dismal science."
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Posted by: johnchx at Aug 29, 2006 2:16:57 PM
If, as you say, it is "death day" here at Marginal Revolution...what a lovely time to sit down with the back of an envelope and take a look at our largest group of preventable deaths. Spose you'all could put down your official, expert, wild-guesses about how many die due to the post-Thalidomide changes in the way the FDA regulates new drugs? Not the countable number that die waiting for a drug that is approved some time later.... but the much larger number that die because lots of research leads don't get funded when it's such a long and expensive path to approval and market.
If Peltzman's estimate (that we are loosing 60% of our new drugs) is still the best number we have, we would appear to be loosing millions of lives a year. A net estimate (wild guess) would be nice.... after all, we do these kinds of estimates wrt Iraq. (yes, Tyrone, we did do these numbers before we went to war, just like we do them when deciding to buy or lease the new SUV).
Posted by: Dave Meleney at Aug 29, 2006 2:31:19 PM
"Mental Health Professionals have relatively high rates of suicide."
Well... don't a lot of people go into psychology to understand their own insanity?
Posted by: Jacqueline at Aug 29, 2006 2:39:57 PM
I especially like the last fact in the linked article, that 100 billion people have died, because it means that more than 5% of all the people who have ever lived are still alive. Thus, the hypothesis of human immortality has not been statistically disproved.
Posted by: sean at Aug 29, 2006 4:52:20 PM
I agree that economic can be related to suicide when it comes to losing a job or becoming laid off. People get put in
these vulnerable situations and compare themselves to the world around them. An example may be a person
who runs a large company and goes bankrupt and now has nothing. It seems as the rise in personal income
there is a tendency for decress in suicide. I feel it all depends on your lifestyle and finding happiness and satisfaction with your life. I read something which stated there was a higher suicide rate in
west as opposed to the east and midwest. I am from Minnesota and comparing it to the lifestyle here in
North Carolina i feel MN is more advanced and up to par with what is happening in the world around us.
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