External Restraints and Suicide and Homicide Rates

Abstract

Research on lethal violence suggests that economic stress is associated with high rates of homicide, while economic well-being is correlated with relatively high suicide rates. Henry and Short explained these trends as a tendency to direct aggression toward the environment under conditions of external stress and restraint and toward the self in the absence of such conditions. In the present study this hypothesis was tested on a sample of 19, mostly industrialized, countries. The proportion of suicides was regressed on a measure of well-being as well as the proportion of the population in the 15– to 19-yr. age group. The results seem to provide a mild support for the hypothesis.