Suicide - Social Learning perspective

                                        Suicide - Social Learning perspective

1. Suicide is a learned behaviour. Childhood experiences and forces in the environment shape the suicidal person and precipitate the act.

2. Child-rearing practices are critical, especially the child’s experiences of punishment. Specifically, the suicidal person has learned to inhibit the expression of aggression outward and simultaneously learned to turn it inward upon him/herself.

3. The suicide can be predicted based on the basic laws of learning. Suicide is shaped behaviour—the behaviour was and is reinforced in his/her environment.

4. The suicidal person’s thoughts provide the stimuli; suicide (response) is imagined. Cognitions (such as self-praise) can be reinforcers for the act.

5. The suicidal person’s expectancies play a critical role in the suicide—he/she expects reinforcement (reward) by the act.

6. Depression, especially the cognitive components, is strongly associated with the suicide. Depression goes far towards explaining suicide. For example, depression maybe caused by a lack of reinforcement, learned helplessness, and/or rewarded.

7. Suicide can be a manipulative act. Others reinforce this.

8. Suicide is not eliminated by means of punishment.

9. The suicidal person is non-socialized. He/she has not been sufficiently socialized into traditional culture. The suicidal person has failed to learn the normal cultural values, especially towards life and death.

10. The suicide can be reinforced by a number of environmental factors, for example, subcultural norms, suggestions on television, gender preferences for specific methods, suicide in significant others (modelling), a network of family and friends, cultural patterns.

Sunil Kumar                                  Jayasudha Kamaraj
Clinical Psychologist                   Counseling Psychologist
http://mindzone.in/http://mindzone.in/