Culture and Suicide Acceptability: A Cross-National, Multilevel Analysis. Issue 2 (1st May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Stack, Steven; Kposowa, Augustine J.
• Is Part Of: Sociological quarterly. Volume 57:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 282
• Page End: 303
• Publication Date: 2016-05-01
• Subjects: sociology of mental health -- global and transnational sociology -- sociology of culture -- crime, law, and deviance; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.1111/tsq.12109
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0253

Abstract

Abstract : Cultural perspectives on suicidality have been largely marked by work explaining variability in suicide acceptability in the United States using structural variables including marital status and demographics, and limited symbolic or values orientations such as feminism, political liberalism, and civil liberties. The present article applies recent developments in comparative cultural sociology to the problem of suicidality. The central hypothesis is that cultural approval of suicide is related to a general cultural axis of nations (self-expressionism) encompassing several values orientations such as tolerance and post-materialism. Data are from Wave 4 of the World Values Surveys and refer to 53, 275 individuals nested in 56 nations. Controls are incorporated from previous studies and include structural and demographic constructs. A hierarchical linear regression model determined that the degree of individual-level adherence to the values of self-expressionism predicted suicide acceptability (SA), independent of controls including ones interpretable from Durkheimian perspectives. Furthermore, persons high in individual-level self-expressionism nested in like-minded nations were relatively high in SA. The analysis of the subject is expanded to 56 nations representing all major culture zones and varied levels of economic/political development. It determined that SA is shaped by a new, broad cultural construct, self-expressionism whose impact is independent of Durkheimian familial and religious integration.