Sociology’s Superpower: Suicide Prevention

By: Prince Bhagtani

Illustration: Devyani Pandey

Long before the term was even coined, suicide, the act of inflicting death upon oneself, had raised many philosophical, psychological, scientific, and religious questions. Although ancient Greek and Latin lacked a word that could aptly translate to the word used today, their opinions on the topic were voiced strongly. Self-killing was criminalized in the ancient Western city-states. From Plato – the famous Greek philosopher – saying that suicide is shameful and connotes cowardice, to Aristotle believing it’s not unfair as long as it is consensual but is wrong toward society, ancient philosophies on suicide lacked concerns for individual well-being.

The Stoics, however, had their own beliefs about suicide, many of which were dependent on the quality of life one led, and all decisions related to suicide largely depended on how fruitful your life was. These vague trails of thought were soon taken over by psychologists as psychiatry emerged as a distinct field in the middle 19th century.

However, the Stoics were not completely wrong in identifying a relationship between the quality of life and suicide. A study examined if self-stated life satisfaction among adults throughout a 20-year period (1976–1995) could predict suicide. It concluded that suicidal risk is long-lastingly impacted by life dissatisfaction, and this effect appears to be partially mediated by unhealthy behaviours. Research like this justifies our knowledge of the risk factors of suicide, which in turn helps us to prevent the loss of precious lives. Desiderius Erasmus rightly said, “Prevention is better than cure.” But when it comes to suicide, prevention is the cure.

Nonetheless, the relationship between society and the act of suicide still stands. Although it is not widely used in modern suicide prevention tactics, sociology has shaped suicidology over the past few decades. The most impactful contribution in the stream would be Emile Durkheim’s (1897/1951) empirical study of suicide. Durkheim viewed suicide as more of a symptom of societal flaws, like alcoholism, rather than an individual matter. He stated that the structure of social relationships between members of a community, the quality of the relations determined by integration (the structural aspects such as the number and density of bonds), and regulation (the degree to which a collective’s moral order controls and coordinates its member’s attitudes and behaviours) determined suicide rates.

Durkheim argued that the more vast and densely connected a collective's social networks are, or the more integrated the collective is, the more intertwined individual group members become and, consequently, the greater value and motive people derive from their lives. Ranging from small ties with your neighbour or your relationships within a community as a whole, this collective belonging protects individuals from what Durkheim termed “egoistic” suicide, or suicides resulting from isolation and a lack of collective belonging. This is what sociologists refer to as social capital, similar to membership benefits.

On the other hand, he believed an excess of integration could cause altruistic suicides. According to Durkheim, close-knit communities may, under certain circumstances, strip people of their capacity for decision-making, resulting in suicides for the "good of the group." He cited Hindu Sati as an example, a rare type of suicide where Hindu widows are forced to jump onto their husband's funeral pyre.

A further claim made by Durkheim was that suicide rates were correlated with how clear, consistent, and widely accepted a group's laws and social standards were. Suicides that Durkheim referred to as "anomic" suicides were the outcome of living in an unregulated society or social group. He believed the integration and regulation of a social bond brought out both intimacy and a sense of morality which otherwise humans did not inherently possess. Fatalistic suicides, however, arise from too rigid regulations depriving individuals of flexibility and limiting their options. According to Durkheim, a group's common morality acts as a shield to keep its members safe. Although Durkheim placed a lot of emphasis on the societal level, it's crucial to remember that we can also form moral bonds with a group and an abstract set of standards, which broadens the protective "web" that a particular person may find themselves in.

However, this theory had limitations too, primarily methodological in the way that it couldn't relate the macro-level social factors to individual behaviour. Nonetheless, the amalgamation of this macro-theory with social networking theories gives us a pragmatic understanding of how suicide is linked to an individual’s social life and society as a whole. Think of the social fabric as a net made of 2 strings, namely integration and regulation, with the individual as a ball resting on the string somewhere. If the integration or regulations are low, it's harder for the society to help the individual as his social ties are weak. Therefore, if a crisis forces the ball to bounce, the strings will be too thin to handle the ball and ultimately break. On the contrary, if either or both strings are too tight, the net becomes condensed and can now be considered a wall. Therefore a ball bouncing will suffer more damage than safety. But strings with a balance between the two are adequately able to cushion the bounce of a ball resulting in the prevention of damage. In this way, social networking theories allow us to view the same macro-level scenario on a magnified scale where the conditions of the net can be more subjective rather than its previous generalized state.

Durkheim argued that better ways of suicide prevention lay in public projects to bring about protective changes in the structure of society to balance the integration and regulation of individuals. As Helen Keller has rightly said, “Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much.” The overcoming of these limitations of sociological theories and the ease with which they explain the link between society and suicide proves the worth of sociology as a useful tool for suicide prevention, which has come to light in the contemporary world.

In conclusion, the concept of suicide has a long and complicated history that spans philosophical, psychological, scientific, and religious domains. Sociology, particularly the work of Emile Durkheim, has underlined the critical link between societal variables and suicide rates. In today's society, combining sociological ideas such as integration and regulation with psychological and public health insights provides a holistic approach to suicide prevention. We must continue to make progress in suicide prevention by combining the wisdom of the past with the instruments of the present, highlighting the huge influence of communal efforts, empathy, and open communication.

Bibliography:

Credits: Mueller, Anna S., et al. “The Social Roots of Suicide: Theorizing How the External Social World Matters to Suicide and Suicide Prevention.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 12, Frontiers Media, 31 Mar. 2021, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621569 Koivumaa‐Honkanen, Heli, et al. “Life Satisfaction and Suicide: A 20-Year Follow-Up Study.” American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 433–439, no. 3, American Psychiatric Association, 1 Mar. 2001, doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.158.3.433 Suicide (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). 9 Nov. 2021, plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/#ChaSui