Cognitive networks detect structural patterns and emotional complexity in suicide notes

Abstract

Communicating one's mindset means transmitting complex relationships between concepts and emotions. Using network science and word co-occurrences, we reconstruct conceptual associations as communicated in 139 genuine suicide notes, i.e., notes left by individuals who took their lives. We find that, despite their negative context, suicide notes are surprisingly positively valenced. Through emotional profiling, their ending statements are found to be markedly more emotional than their main body: The ending sentences in suicide notes elicit deeper fear/sadness but also stronger joy/trust and anticipation than the main body. Furthermore, by using data from the Emotional Recall Task, we model emotional transitions within these notes as co-occurrence networks and compare their structure against emotional recalls from mentally healthy individuals. Supported by psychological literature, we introduce emotional complexity as an affective analog of structural balance theory, measuring how elementary cycles (closed triads) of emotion co-occurrences mix positive, negative and neutral states in narratives and recollections. At the group level, authors of suicide narratives display a higher complexity than healthy individuals, i.e., lower levels of coherently valenced emotional states in triads. An entropy measure identified a similar tendency for suicide notes to shift more frequently between contrasting emotional states. Both the groups of authors of suicide notes and healthy individuals exhibit less complexity than random expectation. Our results demonstrate that suicide notes possess highly structured and contrastive narratives of emotions, more complex than expected by null models and healthy populations.

Cognitive networks and text analysis identify anxiety as a key dimension of psychological distress in suicide notes

“…Recent applications of cognitive networks to the study of suicide notes have provided unique insights into the structure of their emotional contents. For instance, Teixeira et al (2021) and Stella et al (2022) found, with different methodologies, that suicide notes consisted of an overwhelming majority of positively-valenced words that exhibited a compartmentalized structure, such that positively-versus negatively-valenced words were often connected with one another (Showers, 1992). Moreover, Stella et al (2022) found that suicide notes contained a higher degree of emotional complexity than notes written by a non-suicidal control group.…”

“…For instance, Teixeira et al (2021) and Stella et al (2022) found, with different methodologies, that suicide notes consisted of an overwhelming majority of positively-valenced words that exhibited a compartmentalized structure, such that positively-versus negatively-valenced words were often connected with one another (Showers, 1992). Moreover, Stella et al (2022) found that suicide notes contained a higher degree of emotional complexity than notes written by a non-suicidal control group. Together, these findings reflect that suicide notes may contain a unique emotional and lexical footprint.…”

An Exploratory Study in the Portuguese Population on Writing a Suicide Note: Correlates in the Suicide Spectrum and Qualitative Analysis

“…Stella et al (2022) concluded that the notes describe highly structured and contrasting narratives of emotions, more complex than expected by null models and for populations without clinical issues. Based on network science, psycholinguistics, and the semantic framework theory, Teixeira et al (2021) attempted to develop a representational network of suicidal ideation expressed in the same pool of suicide notes analyzed by Stella et al (2022). Findings suggested that the connections between terms with positive and negative valence give rise to a significantly greater degree of balance than in a null model (a model constructed under the assumption that the network under study has no particular patterns or special structure, where the affective structure is random), and in a linguistic baseline model capturing mental wanderings in the absence of suicidal ideation.…”

“…In fact, the material found in suicide notes can be quite complex and informative. Stella et al (2022), used procedures related to network science and analyzed genuine suicide notes written by 143 by individuals who successfully committed suicide. This pool of information was developed by Schoene and Dethlefs (2016).…”

“…This pool of information was developed by Schoene and Dethlefs (2016). Stella et al (2022) concluded that the notes describe highly structured and contrasting narratives of emotions, more complex than expected by null models and for populations without clinical issues. Based on network science, psycholinguistics, and the semantic framework theory, Teixeira et al (2021) attempted to develop a representational network of suicidal ideation expressed in the same pool of suicide notes analyzed by Stella et al (2022).…”