London, Oct 1 (Inditop.com) A new study warns against against glamorizing of celebrity suicides in the media, saying they spawn copycat suicides.
Sociologists have proposed that clusters of suicides around the same time or geographical area may be caused by this copycat effect.
Increasing reach and influence of the media, combined with a growing number of people assigned celebrity status, could increase the probability of suicides, says Alex Mesoudi, a psychologist at Queen Mary, University of London.
By studying the behaviour of 1,000 computer ‘people’, pre-programmed with the rules that govern how people learn from one another, Mesoudi has probed copycat suicides to see if suicidal behaviour really does fit with sociologists’ assumptions.
Mesoudi said: “The findings of the computer simulations strongly support the proposed link between the mass reporting of a prestigious celebrity’s suicide and an increase in national suicide figures.”
“This highlights the need for media guidelines that restrict the dissemination and glorification of suicides, as already introduced in many countries such as Austria, Switzerland and Australia.”
The study is published in PLoS ONE.
