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]]>According to “Emile Durkheim”, any voluntary act of individual, which results in his death, despite being aware the effect of the act, is known as suicide. Durkheim explained four types of suicide in his book “suicide”, published in, 1897. Which are as follow, egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide, anomic suicide and fatalistic suicide.
When individual do not have strong ties with the society or is not connected and associated with the group or society; in such circumstances the probability of committing suicide by individual is higher. Suicide committed by individual due to lack of social cohesion is termed by, Durkheim as, “egoistic suicide”. This type of suicide mostly occur in modern or urban societies because such societies lack social solidarity. Furthermore, individuals who are unmarried or non-believer have high rate of committing egoistic suicide because such individuals have low social cohesion. People who are believers and married have strong ties with society have low rate egoistic suicide.
Human beings differ from every other animal because, they can never be satisfied with what they possess. According to Durkheim, the limits of desires are not provided to human beings by, biological makeup. However, there is a solution for this phenomenon, those limits are provided by society in the shape of norms and regulation, which is imprinted by society in our mind that, we should limit our desires according to our means. Norms and regulations guide individuals, what they hope to achieve and what they should abandon, for the reason that, it is not realistically obtainable. However, in modern society this mechanism does not work the way it should, there is absence of those rules and regulation which guide individuals to limit their desires, according to their means, this situation is called by Durkheim anomie. In modern society when economic conditions become volatile; rich people lose their money overnight and the poor people become very rich all of the sudden, in such circumstances people do not internalize any limits. They become dissatisfied beyond repair, which leads to committing suicide. This type of suicide is called by Durkheim, anomic suicide.
This type of suicide occur in a society, where social cohesion or social solidarity is very high. Individual of a group do not think beyond the group interest. Life and ideas of the individuals do not hold any meaning. In such social setting individual give his life for group interest or norms which is termed by Durkheim as altruistic suicide. The example of altruistic suicide is soldiers dying in war, ritual of sati; in which wife is burned alive with her husband dead body and suicide bombing of radical groups.
Such type of suicide occurs in a society where regulation are very intense. Example of fatalistic suicide existed in primitive society where salve was supposed to kill himself when his master dies.
By Khushdil Khan Kasi
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]]>The post Durkheim Research on Suicide appeared first on Sociology Learners.
]]>Emile Durkheim got curious about the high rate of suicide in Denmark. He wondered why Denmark have such a high rate of suicide compare to England and France. To find out the answer behind his curiosity, he considered social factor which might influence the behavior of individual to commit suicide. Those social factor are given below;
• Level of solidarity and cohesiveness in society
• Individual standing within a society
• Individual position in religious, social and occupational group
Durkheim identified that, suicide is committed by individual but the reason behind this act is hidden in the social life and group of the individual.
Findings of Durkheim research was based on correlation between some social factor and suicide rate such as, there is relationship between being married or single with suicide rate, people economic position and suicide rate and occupation of people and suicide rate. Detailed findings of Emile Durkheim research on suicide are given below.
The connectedness of individual with a group is called integration. The more individual is connected, loved and wanted by a group the lower is the chances of committing suicide. Individual who are not wanted or associated with a group, higher the chances of committing suicide.
Individual who is not affiliated with any religion, has a higher probability of committing suicide. According to Durkheim finding Protestants have high rate committing suicide compare to Jews and Catholics
Individual who is not married or single has a higher rate of committing suicide compare to the married individual. Because married individual is more connected and integrated with group than single individual.
Soldiers have higher rate of committing suicide compare to civilians.
When the economic conditions of a country is unstable there is higher chance of committing suicide by individual compare to the time of prosperity.
The probability of committing suicide in the time of peace is higher than in the time of war.
Individuals who are wealthy have higher probability of committing suicide than middle class and lower class individuals.
Males have higher rate of suicide compare to females.
The rate of committing suicide in white people are higher than colored people.
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