The inquiry reassesses the suggestion theory of suicide. Recent empirical work supporting this theory in such disciplines as sociology, psychology, and social psychiatry has been marked by methodological problems such as the reliance on additive models lacking treatment of the process of circular reinforcement, the ecological fallacy, model misspecification since most of it does not get beyond the simple bivariate relationship between media coverage of suicide and rates of suicidal behavior and cross-sectional research designs. The present paper tests the hypothesis: the greater the coverage of suicide stories in the media the greater tha national monthly suicide rate. In contrast to the past research, the present paper tests a nonadditive model of the process of circular reinforcement wherein audience receptivity to suicide interacts with the amount of media coverage of suicide. Second, the present study takes into account the process of role modeling through an assessment of the sociological characteristics of the persons in the suicide stories and the suicide victims in society. Third, control variables from other prominent theories of suicide are entered into the analysis to test for possible spuriousness in the zero order relationship and to correct for model misspecification in the past research. These include variables taken from the economic and marital integration perspectives. Fourth, it employs tests for downward cross-level bias to control for the problem of the ecological falacy. Fifth, this investigation employs a quasi-experimental research design based on Cochrane-Orcutt iterative econometric time series analysis to overcome the problem of cross-sectional bias in the past research. Through multivariate analysis of data spanning 1900-1982 on more than a dozen variables, the present research can weight the importance of the media factor against other predictor variables. The results of the research should stimulate further investigations of imitation theory such as the impact of media stories on other forms of deviant behavior such as homicide, rape, and the poisoning of medicine such as Tylenol.
| Stack, S (1993) The media and suicide: a nonadditive model, 1968-1980. Suicide Life Threat Behav 23:63-6 |
| Stack, S (1992) The effect of the media on suicide: the Great Depression. Suicide Life Threat Behav 22:255-67 |
| Stack, S (1990) A reanalysis of the impact of non celebrity suicides. A research note. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 25:269-73 |
| Stack, S (1989) The effect of publicized mass murders and murder-suicides on lethal violence, 1968-1980. A research note. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 24:202-8 |
| Stack, S (1988) Suicide: media impacts in war and peace, 1910-1920. Suicide Life Threat Behav 18:342-57 |
| Stack, S (1987) The sociological study of suicide: methodological issues. Suicide Life Threat Behav 17:133-50 |
