Copycat effects after media reports on suicide: A population-based ecologic study
Introduction
The possibility that mass media reporting on suicide has an impact on suicidal behaviour in the population is a controversially discussed public health issue. On one hand, it has been discussed that media discourse supports suicide preventive efforts when it educates the public about the treatment of mental ill-health and suicidality (Hegerl et al., 2006, Niederkrotenthaler and Sonneck, 2007, Sonneck et al., 1994, World Health Organization, 2008). On the other hand, other evidence suggests that suicide-related reporting, especially of non-fictional individual suicides, triggers additional suicides: so-called imitative effects (Cheng et al., 2007, Cheng et al., 2007, Etzersdorfer et al., 2001, Jonas, 1992, Phillips, 1974, Schmidtke and Häfner, 1988, Stack, 1987, Tousignant et al., 2005, Wasserman, 1984). In spite of the wide-spread assumption that copycat effects following media reports are a real phenomenon, there are severe inconsistencies in available research results. A substantial number of studies have not identified any evidence of a post-report increase in suicides (Mercy et al., 2001, Stack, 2005). As Stack notes, such inconsistencies may be due to the large variation in study methodologies (Stack, 2005), which may be attributable to a lack of theoretical guidance in research on the phenomenon (Marsden, 2000, p. 84).
Most frequently, studies on copycat behaviour build on social learning theory (Bandura, 1986, Blood and Pirkis, 2001). Bandura's theory defines identification of the imitator with the model as a necessary prerequisite of imitative behaviour (Bandura, 1986, Blood and Pirkis, 2001). However, concepts of identification have rarely been considered in research on copycat effects (Blood and Pirkis, 2001, Stack, 1992). The theory of differential identification suggests that people tend to identify with someone who is socially superior, as in the case of celebrities (“vertical identification”: Blood and Pirkis, 2001, Stack, 1992). This is supported by the large number of case studies that have found an increase in suicides following reports on celebrity suicides. Furthermore, the concept of differential identification also suggests that social similarity between imitator and model (e.g. same age group and sex) is an important factor in identification and in imitative behaviour (referred to as “horizontal identification”: Blood and Pirkis, 2001, Stack, 1992). Evidence of associations between social status (e.g. celebrity status) and the risk of post-report increase in suicides may be primarily present in subgroups of suicides that are similar to the respective models. We conducted the present study in order to test associations of social model characteristics and reporting characteristics with post-report increases of total suicides and additionally with suicides that were similar and dissimilar to the respective reported suicides.
Section snippets
Social status of the models
The concept of vertical identification suggests that people are more likely to identify with individuals who are socially superior, which is the case in celebrities. By contrast, as suggested by Stack (1987), criminality in the suicide case may indicate a lower social status compared to the majority of the population, and thereby decrease the probability of finding evidence of copycat effects.
Hypothesis (a): Celebrity status is associated with an increased probability of a post-report increase
Material and methods
We obtained daily data on suicides from July 1996 to September 2006, with sex, age groups, and suicide methods recorded according to the International Classification of Diseases-9 (ICD-9) and ICD-10 classifications, from Statistics Austria.
All media reports in the 13 most widely read nationwide Austrian newspapers that included the word “self-murder” or “suicide” were collected from the Austrian Press Agency for the same time period. In total, these newspapers reach regularly 74.2% of the
Results
For a display of the moving count of total suicides and of the total number of media items in the preceding year for each month from July 1997 to September 2006, see Fig. 2.
For 176 (98.3%) of the identified 179 individual suicides, complete information on the independent variables could be extracted. 165 (93.7%) were male and 11 (6.3%) were female. 14 individuals (8.0%) belonged to the age group of adolescents and young adults up to 29 years, 136 (77.3%) were between 30 and 64 years of age, and
Discussion
The present study constitutes the first to investigate associations of social status of reported suicides in terms of both celebrity and criminality status with the probability of a post-report increase of suicides. Based on the theory of vertical identification, celebrities are more appropriate as models for imitation because of their perceived social superiority, whereas criminals may be perceived as open to social disapproval and therefore inferior, which is likely to result in a decreased
Acknowledgements
The Austrian Academy of Sciences supported this study (grant number 70036 to T.N. and 70034 to B. T.).
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