Durkheim’s study on suicide is viewed as a well-known paradigm in sociological studies. The purpose of this essay is to explain how Durkheim was able to show the social causes of suicide through the analysis of statistics across several countries (Hassan, 1998). Durkheim chose to study suicide because in the 19th century sociology was not entirely recognised as an area of academic interest (Finchman, Langer, Scourfield & Shiner, 2011). In addition to this, Durkheim wanted to show that suicide was not just an individual act and that sociology played a part. This essay also intends to explore how Durkheim was able to
Durkheim was one of the earliest sociologists to study suicide. He suggested that suicide was not just an individual act, but that it was also influenced by wider social issues. As a positivist Durkheim took a scientific approach to studying suicide and used official statistic to study the topic of suicide, and considered his findings to be social facts. Durkheim noted correlations between suicide rates, such as single people committed suicide more often than married people and suicide consistently was more common in protestant countries compared to catholic countries. Durkheim believed that the suicide rate in a country was influenced by two factors; social integration, how well people felt like they belonged to their society, and social regulation, how much their society controlled them.
His major writings are 'The Division of Labour', 'the rules of sociological method', 'Suicide' and 'The Elementary forms of religious life'. Suicide: One of Durkheim's most famous studies was concerned with the analysis of suicide (Durkheim 1952, originally published in 1897). In his book, he has given a fine sociological analysis of suicide which is based as the theory of sociology or collective mind. The book is praised as a research classic. Suicide seems to be a purely personal act, the outcome of extreme person unhappiness.
Thus, society is thought to be socially constructed through human interpretation. We can take homicides for the example. Many killer believe that they have done something good or that they have done favor to the victim(s) by killing them. Take for example recent case of Julie Schenecker's who killed two teenage daughters believing that she is saving them from mental illness. Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society.
SHOULD MILGRAM’S EXPERIMENTS ON OBEDIENCE EVEN HAVE BEEN CONDUCTED? CONSIDER THE ETHICS OF THE EXPERIMENTS, THE CONTRIBUTION OF MILGRAM’S FINDINGS TO OUR SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR, AND THE RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY TO CONTEMPORARY LIFE IN BRITAIN TODAY. Obedience, as a determinant of social behaviour, is of particular interest to psychologists. It has been reliably established that during the Second World War millions of innocent persons were systematically slaughtered on command. Gas chambers were built, death camps were guarded, daily quotas of corpses were produced with the same efficiency as the manufacture of appliances.
They are considered the "fathers of the study of victimology." These new "victimologists" began to study the behaviors and vulnerabilities of victims, such as the resistance of rape victims and characteristics of the types of people who were victims of crime, especially murder victims. Mendelsohn (1937) interviewed victims to obtain information, and his analysis led him to believe that most victims had an "unconscious aptitude for being victimized." He created a typology of six (6) types of victims, with only the first type, the innocent, portrayed as just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other five types all contributed somehow to their own injury, and represented victim precipitation.
The main argument starts with Durkheim who explains that sociology can be a science. Durkheim uses the example of suicide and how we can study such a personal and individual act in an objective manner using statistics. From his studies of suicides Durkheim found that there were patterns in the suicide rate which meant that the act wasn’t a product of the individuals motives but instead a social fact. The suicide therefore had to be a result of wider social forces which we have no control over. Durkheim went on to explain that the social facts responsible for determining the suicide rate were the levels of integration and regulation an individual has in a society.
Numerous professionals within the team are trained in CBT, and use CBT to treat a wide range of issues including self-harm; this is where my interest derives. Through involvement it proved CBT to be efficacious in treating depression and problem solving ability among others thus I have decided to research further into the effectiveness of CBT in the treatment of self-harm. Through research it is evident that self-harming behaviour is frequent among adolescents and young adults and these behaviours are not only challenging on their own but are major risk factors for future suicide (Robinson et al, 2011). “Deliberate self-harm among young people is an important focus of policy and practice internationally. Nonetheless, there is little reliable comparative international information on its extent or characteristics” (Madge et al, 2008:667).
One aspect that was said to have pushed them away from the education system and towards these gangs was because they had middle class standards and values and these boys were unable to live up to the high expectations of these teachers. Therefore, sociologists believe that to some extent, this is one of the key points which can easily cause crime in society. The opportunity structure is where sociologists have explained that crime is determined in the level of legal and illegal opportunities available to
This figure later dropped by 75% after the media complied with guidelines recommended by an Austrian association for suicide prevention. Now we have the imitation effect or Werther effect, Phillips initially introduced this theory in 1974. The name "Werther effect" comes from a German author Goethe's story about a young intelligent dreamer named Werter, who shot himself for the sake of a lost love. After the publication of this book suicidal shootings became popular among young men. Imitation reinforced by such matters as identification and suggestion is a common explanation today, and supported for example, that many "contagion" suicides use the same method.