Do Suicides Indirectly Cause Airplane Crashes?
An op-ed from Paul Steinberg in the New York Times a few days ago discusses the fact that families of soldiers who have committed suicide do not receive presidential condolence letters. The concern is that actions taken to commemorate or honor people who commit suicide will encourage more suicides. Steinberg writes “The hard truth is that any possible glorification of suicide — even reports of suicide — make the taking of one’s life a more viable option. If suicide appears to be a more reasonable way of handling life’s stresses than seeking help, then suicide rates increase.” The theory that the publicity of suicides can cause more suicides is known as “the Werther effect”, after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sufferings of Young Werther. According to Robert Cialidini’s book Influence, when the Goethe’s novel about the suicide of Werther was published, it set off a wave of copycat suicides. Evidence for the theory was first offered by David Phillips in 1974 (gated version of the pape
