Attempted Suicide and Cultural Change: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Monitoring ofpatient records has shown that, over the last decade in Edinburgh, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of attempted suicide among men aged under 25; whereas among men aged over 40, the rates have remained stable. This trend is paralleled in other parts of the U.K. The research described in this paper was based on the assumption that a change has occurred in the world-view of young people, and that this has been responsible for the differential increase in attempted suicide. The elements of this change were seen as: (a) an emphasis on the importance of "self-fulfillment"; (b) a belief that society, rather than the individual, should be responsible for providing the means to personal fulfillment; (c) a resulting tendency to regard social and material deprivations as obstacles to self-fulfillment. It was postulated that individuals who possess these values, and who live in objectively deprived circumstances, would be less willing to tolerate stresses than would their older counterparts, who were seen as placing less emphasis on personal fulfillment, and more on personal responsibility. A set of hypotheses, derivedfrom this model, were tested in a study of 100 male attempted suicides and 100 controls. Findings support the view that changes of the type suggested have taken place in the consciousness of young people; but these do not seem to relate to the trend in attempted suicide among the young.