Durkheim Suicide

Emile Durkheim – Suicide: A Study in Sociology Durkheim investigated suicide and categorized into four separate types as follows: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. He explored egoistic suicide through the three religions of Protestant, Catholicism, and Judaism as well as an investigation into married and unmarried people. He explored altruistic suicide through interpretation of primitive and Eastern societies. He explored anomic suicide by examining economic and financial crises through the angle of prosperity and despair (economic downturn). He briefly noted fatalistic suicide in a footnote; he noted this type of suicide occurs in social conditions where the individual experiences pervasive oppression. Durkheim utilized empirical research through statistical analysis. He searched through various sorts of data and evidence to find factors associated with suicide but the explanation is not simply a relation between these data and suicides, rather he was searching for social causes or conditions that are expressed through these. The data he collected was analyzed quantitatively and he approached it sociologically not psychologically. His descriptions of all his types of suicide are not caused by simple despair and depression; his quantification leads to more tangibility. His significant findings were in-depth descriptions and explanations of each type of suicide. He thoroughly analyzed each type through statistical interpretation.

Durkheim 's aim was not to explain or predict an individual’s tendency to suicide but to explain such social facts through social currents. Social currents are characteristics of society and different collectivities have different collective consciousness or collective representation. These produce different social currents, and these lead to different suicide rates. By studying different groups and societies, some of these currents can be analyzed, and the effect of these on suicide can be determined.