Copycat Suicides

October 17, 2006
Werther Effect: Copycat Suicides May Not Exist

Goethe's popular comic book, Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, allegedly inspired two imitations; many young men decided to kill themselves, and many, many young men decided to dress in yellow pants and blue jackets.

Well, that's all great, but I decded to investigate whether suicide rates really do increase after one is popularized-- a propos of the previous post's discussion about whether Lott's roommate's suicide pushed Lott towards it as well. I was pretty sure it existed, but I may have been wrong. Preliminarily, here's what I found, through 4 examples:

A study in Austria found that gun suicides increased in the three weeks following a famous gun suicide (as compared to the three weeks preceding). There are lots of this kind of study, which are correlations based on statistical anomalies.

A better kind of study actually interviewed the suicide attempters to see what had affected them. For example, a U.S. study found that exposure to parental suicide was not associated with suicide; exposure to a friend or acquaintance's suicide was mildly protective, and media accounts were strongly protective. However, this study wasn't about the immediate risk (e.g. in the following month), and the authors did note that this protective effect was only if the friend's suicide or media report was greater than a year in the past. It is easy to speculate that the longer you have to think about what they did, the more likely you are to think it wasn't the best option.

A 1993 study in adolescents found that within one month of the suicide of a friend, depression and suicidal ideation increased; but actual suicide attempts did not.

Most of the studies finding no correlation are done using the general population; how would it be different if we looked only at people with established mental illnesses? A 2005 study found that suicides in mental illness patients were clustered in terms of place, time, and method. Unfortunately, this study looked at the clusters and did not identify whether or not the victims were actually even known-- or whether the patients had even heard about the suicides. (For example, they might happen at the same clinic, but that doesn't mean they knewabout each other.)

Etc, etc. So clustering, at least in terms of lethal attempts, appears not to happen much, (and if it does it is primarily in teens.)

As an observation, most of the articles finding Werther effects were written pre 1980, while most finding no relationship were written post 2000. One explanation is that we are more rigorous now (HA!); the other explanation being that there is considerably less idealization of suicide now. In fact, suicide now is unremarkable. Consider the "medicalization" of depression and suicide, as biological diseases rather than character pathology or expressions of emotion, a communication of sorts. Suicides then "meant" something-- something more than "I'm depressed," while suicides now are simply symptoms. Suicide= more Wellbutrin.

I still think they "mean" something, and I try to interpret it, but the focus nowadays is certainly not to interpret suicide as an expression of anything. Too bad.

April 30, 2007
Does Media Reporting Of Suicides and Homicides Promote Copycats?

I won't give a detailed answer to this question here (it seems to be no), but there is an article making the reddit rounds now that I need to kill before it becomes another meme.

The article is from BMJ 2002, called Influences of the Media On Suicide, and it puts its conclusion right at the top:

Reporting and portrayal of suicidal behaviour in the media may have potentially negative influences and facilitate suicidal acts by people exposed to such stimuli. Recent systematic reviews by others and ourselves (unpublished) have found overwhelming evidence for such effects.1

And it offers about 8 references in support. And so now every nut with a microphone can proclaim it loudly: it's the media's fault.

We may want to take a pause and examine these 8 references: none of them offer anything close to "overwhelming evidence." For example:

Reference 1-- the one directly cited for the above statements-- is indicative of the type of "overwhelming evidence" that exists. The study finds that media reporting of suicide is extensive and detailed, but not that there is a clear link to future suicides.

In the summary, the authors use phrases like, "dearth of literature," "evidence is less reliable," "few studies permitting/demonstrating [the link]," "does not demonstrate consistency," "many studies fail to demonstrate" over 11 times in the 3 pages describing the studies.

Despite this, they are sure the link exists-- but they don't actually show the link, they infer a link. The authors repeat phrases, "it is fair to conclude that the evidence suggests an association [exists]" "tends to suggest," "probably reasonable to regard the association is causal" 13 times in two pages. Under these criteria, it's reasonable to assume the Matrix is real.

Reference 3 (not even linked correctly) is a letter to the editor, describing two cases, where the method of suicide was affected by internet, but not the decision to commit suicide. And the methods were rather weak: one guy took two pills of castor oil, and the other woman tried to drink water. No, I'm not kidding.

Reference 5 is frequently cited in support of media's impact. It supposedly says that a TV show with a Tylenol OD caused more Tylenol ODs: 20% of these suicidal viewers said it influenced their decision to attempt suicide in the first week post broadcast. Maybe-- that 20% is really 6 people. And most had attempted Tylenol OD in the past. Oh, and the authors note that while 17% of the suicidal viewers' choice of Tylenol was influenced by the show, some of them chose not to use it because of the show.

Reference 12 is probably the most cited reference in this field. In 1978 Vienna built a subway, which soon became a popular method of suicide. So the government established guidelines for reporting-- specifically, that the method not be mentioned-- and subways suicides decreased by 80%. Fantastic. Overall suicide rates didn't change, though. Too bad.

So much for the "overwhelming evidence" for a soon to be media soundbite.

The article doesn't make a good case for media influencing the decision to kill yourself, though I'll admit that it may influence the method. And that's where it gets tricky.

It's important to make a distinction between copycat suicides and copycat homicides: more poeple die in the latter, and, let's postulate, they didn't want to die. That has to be part of the calculus in media reporting. Copying suicide by water (instead of pills) is different than copying a 30 person massacre (instead of killing, say, one person.)

But you have to weigh this against the societal costs. The solution offered in these articles is to restrict media reporting. I think we can agree that the media are neither liberal nor conservative, but sensationalists, their bias is titillation. But to allow anyone, especially government, to affect the content of reporting-- literally, the information we are allowed to have-- seems exactly the wrong solution to a problem which may not actually exist. (e.g. I know it seems prurient, but I actually want to know all the details of David Kelly's suicide.)

Not to mention that if you say the media are partly responsible, then you're saying that you're less responsible.

June 4, 2007
"The Copycat Effect:" Does Reporting Violence Lead To Violence?

A reader asked me to read his book before saying that copycat suicides is not a real phenomenon.

To be fair, his book is really good. It is worth the price even as a reference guide/catalog of suicides and homicides that share similar characteristics, which are striking. While the majority of the information is a google search away, the fact is that he actually did the searches. It's also a good read-- it neither bores you nor crams the conclusions into your head.

But, I respectfully disagree. I think.

The main disagreement I have with the book is that he conflates two phenomena. His stated thesis of the book is that media reporting of violence and suicides begats copycats. However, in support of this premise, he uses examples of the media itself (e.g. movies) causing copycats.

A perfect example of this is the Werther Effect, so named for the Sorrows of Young Werther, the 1774 comic book by Goethe in which the protagonist kills himself because he can't get the girl. Subsequently, there were numerous copycat suicides-- staging it (same clothes, same desk) as Werther in the novel. Ok, I get it-- that's a copycat. But that's not an example of media reporting causing copycats.

In contrast, here's an example of a reporting-induced copycat: Coleman relates the Bergenfield Four. For a few months, there were rumors that a bunch of kids who called themselves "The Burnouts" had made a suicide pact. In September of 1986 their leader killed himself; in March of 1987 four others carbon monoxided themselves in a parking garage, leaving a note that clearly linked the deaths. One week after that, a cop found two other kids trying to do the same thing in the same garage. The day after the original four suicides, but in Illinois, two other teens suicided the same way (in a garage, in fact.) Coleman writes that by checking newspapers, he counted 22 teen carbon monoxide suicides in two weeks-- 47 in a month.

But then there's the case of Barry Loukaitis, who in 1996 shot two kids and a math teach, and said he got the idea from Stephen King's Rage, Pearl Jam's Jeremy, Natural Born Killers and The Basketball Diaries. Coleman writes that "the media attention...triggered a series of similar events." So, in these copycats, was it Basketball Diaries or the evening news? It's hard for me to see how the news can be more influential to a suicidal kid than the movie itself-- do kids even watch the news?

In fairness, he does cite numerous examples of media reporting induced copycats (check out the chapter "Planes Into Buildings" for a wild ride) but overall the argument is weakened by using both together. I left the book reasonably convinced that media can inspire copycat violence, but not that they inspire violence itself. In other words, I think those Werther scholars were going to kill themselves somehow, but they decided to shoot themselves (as oppposed to self-immolation) because of the book.

The distinction-- media or media reporting-- is important because the solutions are different. Here's an example: the book opens with the story about how one month after Marilyn Monroe's suicide, 197 (mostly blonde women) "appear to have used the model," to suicide-- an increase in the suicide rate of 12%. Furthermore, the suicide rate never went down after that. "This is the copycat effect working with a vengeance." Maybe. Or maybe the graphic description of the suicide wasn't to blame, but rather that a huge icon had done it at all. Are they copying her, or is society ripe for self-destruction? Either way, should we not report that Monroe killed herself at all? How much do you control information to protect the people? If the government is doing the controlling, then I can't imagine the answer should be anything other than "not at all, get the hell out of my face."

I've always said that the "mainstream media" is neither liberal nor conservative-- they are sensationalist. Of course I think they overreport, and overdramatize unusual violence. But I see that as more of a symptom of our culture than the cause of anything. You could close down all news portals, it won't change the amount of violence. Sure, maybe you wouldn't have thought of playing Russian Roulette. But you were going to come up with something.

Coleman wrote a thorough book, using the type of diligent research the CIA is supposed to be good at: compiling open source information and forming links. I only partly disagree with his conclusion, and I am still open to further arguments. But I am against the solution.

It's worth remembering that, in response to the copycat suicides, Sorrows of Young Werther was banned in Germany. I know I am one of only 8 people who has actually read it, but do we really want it banned? Maybe "dangerous" books need to be delayed by a generation to be published? And you see my problem.

Absent direct power or wealth, the only thing that keeps us free is information. I believe it is worth the risk of copycat suicides, especially since influencing the choice of the method of suicide isn't the same as influencing the choice of commiting suicide.