SOC3201 Presentation Tong Ho Hin 4045656

Presentation Question: Why, according to Durkheim, do people kill themselves? Give

an account of Durkheim’s analysis based on integration and regulation.
As a mini case study, choose one specific social group and collect information on
their suicide situation.

1 What is suicide?
Suicide – “any death which is the direct or indirect result of a positive or negative
act accomplished by the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result”

People used to think that suicide is an individual act

Durkheim  Social Fact
 Social structures
 Social causes

2 Suicide Statistics in Europe

- At each moment of the history, each society has a definite aptitude for suicide.
- Suicide rate: ‘a factual order, unified and definite’
- NOT just an individual action
- Suicide is a social phenomenon
- Social factors driving suicide produces the tendency

Two social forces: Integration and Regulation

Integration
- How a person is absorbed into the society
- The bonding to social groups

Regulation
- Power that controls individuals’ actions
- E.g. Social norms
3 Egoistic Suicide (*Low Social Integration)
- Low degree of integration of the social groups
- Detached from society, less resistance to suicide
- Excessive individualism

Religions
Catholics vs. Protestants

Protestants’ suicide rates > Catholics’ suicide rates

Features of Protestants:
- Spirit of free inquiry
- Greater religious individualism
(‘The Bible is put in his hands and no interpretation is imposed upon him’)
- Fewer common beliefs and practices
- More individual judgement
- Thinner bureaucracy
- Less integrated church

Societies and Families

- Widowed and divorced men > married men
- Without children > With children

Egoistic suicide is more common in modern societies

- Individuality
- Independence
- Fewer social contacts
- Nuclear families
4 Altruistic Suicide (*Too Much Social Integration)
- Suicide is DUTY
- Highly integrated and absorbed into the society
- Impersonality
- Self-sacrifice
- Obligatory (implicitly or explicitly)
- Social prestige attaches to suicide

Egoistic Suicide Altruistic Suicide

Sadness Hope and Satisfaction
Detached from life With a goal
No goal in life Belief in beautiful perspectives beyond this life

Examples:
1. Soldiers who preferred death to the humiliation of defeat
2. People who kill themselves to prevent disgrace befalling their family in traditional
societies

5 Anomic Suicide (*Low Social Regulation)

- Normlessness
- Can occur when societies change drastically
- Sudden growth/Unexpected Catastrophe
- Disturbances of the collective order

Economic Crisis
- Individuals fall to the lower state
- Reduce requirements and needs

Economic Boom
- Conditions of life change suddenly
- Regulations lost
- Unknown values and limitations
- No restraints
- Demands increase  fulfillment impossible
6 Fatalistic Suicide (*Too Much Social Regulation)
- Individuals with over-regulated, unrewarding lives (e.g. slaves, prisoners)
- Unable to see their future
- No way to escape/improve