Emile Durkheim's Suicide

Emile Durkheim was one of the most influential people to write about suicide and its causes. Suicide had previously been thought to be a moral and psychological problem whereas Durkheim related suicide to sociological problems in modern society. He believed and worked to prove that suicide was not related to

The importance of social factors over the individual can also be seen in Durkheim’s work on suicide (Stones, 2008). Suicide was explained in terms of two independent variables, integration in society and regulation by society. Low levels of integration led to egoistic suicide, while low levels of regulation led to anomic suicide. Durkheim cited egoism and anomie as the main causes of suicide in the modern world; a world which he believed showed less interaction and people thinking more about themselves than others. As a result, people are less bound to one another, there is less community and social control is weaker (Stones, 2008). Durkheim applied his

Feelings of isolation have been linked to higher suicide rates. Durkheim’s study on suicide during the industrial revolution supports this theory as he states that, “people were increasingly disconnected from their communities and that this social upheaval had a greater effect on suicide rates than other factors like wealth” (Winner & Collishaw, 2011). Interestingly enough, despite the increase of media attention on suicide, no studies have been published that explain why suicide rates vary among different groups. However, various factors are involved in the decision to commit suicide. As a result, suicide rates vary according to race, gender and age.

Émile Durkheim’s Theory of Suicide Émile Durkheim once said, “It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions” (Durkheim). This would be the basis for his theory of suicide. Émile Durkheim was a French Sociologist in the 19th century, known for his work that established the branch of Education now known as Sociology, along with Karl Marx and Max Weber, he is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science. Émile Durkheim dedicated his work around how Societies function and evolve. Émile Durkheim researched Suicide within the countries of France, England, and Denmark (Lester). This research led him to the theory that Suicide, while being a solitary act, the causes had significant links to society and social factors. In 1897, Émile Durkheim wrote the book, Le Suicide. In this book he discussed and divided suicide into four different categories such as: Egoistic suicide, Altruistic suicide, Anomic suicide and Fatalistic suicide (Lester). This division of suicide was based on the role that society places in an individual's life which is still significant to modern sociology.

Traditionally, suicide was thought to be a purely individual decision but French sociologist Emile Durkheim recognized that the phenomenon had a social dimension. He believed in the influence of society on the individual and that if anything can explain that relation, it is suicide. His use of the data of suicide, not specific cases and reports, to study the societal trends reveals his true subject of study: society as a whole and its role in the individual experience. Durkheim uses the study of suicide via the quantitative methodological approach as a tool to study society as a broader whole.

If we look at Durkheim’s theory from a Christian perspective and what he says about individuals not existing by themselves independently and are not separate from society then he is right. God created man to be in relationship with him, therefore we were made to have relationship with one another. If people in our society are not connected to a social group then they allow themselves to be isolated and being alone. This shows that social integration plays a determining factor of suicide.

Emile Durkheim would stand to say that we need social media, despite negative effects. He would state that, although as an American culture centered around social media can cause us to be way too focus on our “internet lives”, mass media plays a very important duty to the American people. It provides everyone, with news, entertainment, and socialization. Durkheim questioned how our societies maintain their internal stability and survive over time. And like a body’s systems all working together to create life, society and social media work together like the brain works with the heart. Societies are growing larger and mass social media is a good medium to reach out to many people at once. It keeps us informed and at the same time allows us to

When he was four years of age his gang moved to Vienna, the town where he would live and work for the vast majority of the rest of his life. He got his medicinal degree in 1881 and got to be locked in to wed the next year. His marriage

Durkheim Suicides Egoistic Suicide is when a person isolates themselves from the world and feel like they no longer belong.

Emile Durkheim was well –known sociologist famous for his views on the structures of society. During his theory development, He discovered four kinds of suicide committed by people in the society in which they are living in. Durkheim developed a theoretical typology of suicide to explain the differing effects of social factors and how they might lead to suicide. They are as follows:

singles have higher rate than marriage couples. Protestant have higher rate than Catholic and Jews. Because protestant society are more individual and they believe to work hard and harder. They depend on their self-achievement than traditional and family lineage. On the other hand catholic and Jews are much restricted than protestant, because people respect with their religious leaders like churches, monks etc. that is why protestant societies are more developed than with the catholic societies. Also, anyone who is rejected by the society are very likely to commit suicide than the individual who have more integrated to the society. Similarly, person can commit self-suicide if he or she suddenly lost their wealth. He argued that modern society lost

There are many memorable sociologists that made an impact on how we look at things today. Sociology has been around since the eighteenth century and has become more developed as time went by. There have been many great and famous sociologist to make new discoveries that have changed sociology, such as, W.E.B Du Bois, Jane Addams, Karl Marx, etc. The sociologist that I agree with the most is Emile Durkheim. I approve all the famous sociologists’ theories but Emile Durkheim’s theories relate more to understanding how society operates.

According to Durkheim’s theories, suicide is the result of disturbances in the balance of social integration and regulation for an individual. Social integration can be defined as one’s connection to a social group, and moreover as the purpose and meaning provided to an individual’s life through said group. Common sources of social integration include: religion, domestic groups, political groups, and ethnic groups. Often social integration can be associated with social regulation. Social regulation can be understood as the social and moral rules that regulate what is right or wrong; and good or bad. Durkheim uses these terms to understand suicide as a social fact, or a result of a force that is beyond the individual. He sees social integration

Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist that created a social theory based on individualism (Burke, 2015). His work has served as a foundation for many of the social theories that have followed since (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Durkheim disagreed that crime causation could be accounted for based strictly on biological or psychological reasons (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). He argued that society influences had significant impacts on a person’s individualism (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). The laws of a particular society, institutional rules, and influences of groups all affect an individual and directly play a role in criminal behavior (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Durkheim published “The Division of Labor in Society” back in 1893. This publication had a dramatic influence in describing how societies change as they modernize (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). As a particular society becomes more modern, or industrialized, the more control it has over the actions of its residents (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). He argued that society caused people to work outside their capacities and divided labor so that it negatively affected someone’s livelihood (Bohm & Vogel, 2011). Durkheim also showed these modernizations of societies hurt the collective conscience. Basically, the camaraderie of a community and the moral values that act as the glue for a group of people is deteriorated (Bohm & Vogel, 2011).

Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to