Copycat suicide

Wilhelm Amberg, Reading from Goethe's Werther
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Werther and Lotte, from The Sorrows of Young Werther

A copycat suicide is defined as an emulation of another suicide that the person attempting suicide knows about either from local knowledge or due to accounts or depictions of the original suicide on television and in other media. The publicized suicide serves as a trigger, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide by a susceptible or suggestible person. This is referred to as suicide contagion.[1]

A spike in emulation suicides after a widely publicized suicide is known as the Werther effect, after rumours of such a spike following the publication of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.[2][3]

Suicides occasionally spread through a school system, through a community, or in terms of a celebrity suicide wave, nationally. This is called a suicide cluster.[1] Point clusters are clusters of suicides in both time and space, and have been linked to direct social learning from nearby individuals.[4] Mass clusters are clusters of suicides in time but not space, and have been linked to the broadcasting of information concerning celebrity suicides via the mass media.[5]

  1. ^ a b Halgin, Richard P.; Susan Whitbourne (January 2006). Abnormal Psychology with MindMap II CD-ROM and PowerWeb. McGraw-Hill. p. 62. ISBN 0-07-322872-9.
  2. ^ Schmidtke A, Häfner H (1988). "The Werther effect after television films: new evidence for an old hypothesis". Psychol. Med. 18 (3): 665–76. doi:10.1017/s0033291700008345. PMID 3263660. S2CID 43518952.
  3. ^ Thorson, Jan; Öberg, Per-Arne (2003-01-01). "Was There a Suicide Epidemic After Goethe's Werther ?". Archives of Suicide Research. 7 (1): 69–72. doi:10.1080/13811110301568. ISSN 1381-1118. S2CID 144982013.
  4. ^ Golman, D (1987-03-18). "Pattern of Death: Copycat Suicides among Youths". The New York Times. Retrieved April 21, 2011.
  5. ^ Mesoudi, A (2009). "The Cultural Dynamics of Copycat Suicide". PLOS ONE. 4 (9): e7252. Bibcode:2009PLoSO...4.7252M. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007252. PMC 2748702. PMID 19789643.