Determining the Authenticity of Suicide Notes

Abstract

Two studies examined the degree to which training could improve participants' ability to determine the authenticity of suicide notes. In Study 1, informing participants about variables that are known to discriminate between genuine and simulated suicide notes did not improve their decision accuracy beyond chance, nor did this training allow participants to perform as accurately as a statistical prediction rule. In Study 2, the provision of additional training instructions did enhance participants' decision accuracy but not to a level achieved by the statistical prediction rule. However, training that included all instructions simultaneously resulted in a slight performance decrease attributable to the fact that certain instructions proved problematic when applied to the sample of suicide notes upon which decisions were being made. The potential implications of these findings for police decision making and training are discussed.

An Investigation of Suicide Notes: An ESP Genre Analysis

“…Chia, & Tai, 2008;Olson, 2005). Suicide notes are also crucial pieces of evidence used in investigation of death and in courts (Bennell, Jones, & Taylor, 2011;Leenaars, 1999) to confirm the cause of death, whether it being a true suicide or a homicide accompanied by a fake note (i.e., not a real suicide note produced by the decedent but rather a note produced by another individual). Additionally, analysing and understanding suicide notes can be important in decreasing suicide attempts through developing appropriate prevention programs (Olson, 2005).…”

Rhetorical Moves in an Occluded Genre: A Qualitative Analysis of Suicide Notes

“…The importance of suicide notes lies in that they are the texts written by individuals who committed (completers) or attempted to commit suicide (attempters) (Black, 1993); hence, they are considered as a valuable source of information that might contribute to understanding the completer's (or attempter's) mind and his/her final thoughts (Darbonne, 1969;Jacobs, 1971;Leenaars, 1999; and sometimes provide information on the motives behind the act (Canetto & Lester, 2002;Chia, Chia, & Tai, 2008;Olson, 2005). Suicide notes are also crucial pieces of evidence used in the investigation of death and in courts (Bennell, Jones, & Taylor, 2011;Koehler, 2007;Leenaars, 1999) to confirm the cause of death, whether it being a true suicide or a homicide accompanied by a fake note (i.e., not a real suicide note produced by the decedent but rather a note produced by another individual). Additionally, analyzing and understanding suicide notes can be important in decreasing suicide attempts through developing appropriate prevention programs (Nashef, 2010;O'Connor, Sheehy, & O'Connor, 1999;Olson, 2005).…”

“…As well, genuine suicide notes had more neutral thought units which were represented by giving instructions to survivors or relatives of the note writer. Shneidman and Farberow's (1957) innovative study marked the beginning of the subsequent investigations of suicide notes and many more recent studies (e.g., Bennell et al, 2011;Ioannou & Debowska, 2014;Roubidoux, 2012;Shapero, 2011) Some studies set out to investigate newly obtained corpora of genuine and simulated suicide notes (e.g., Black, 1993, corpus from San Francisco). Some shared findings of this line of research, similarly to the pioneering study by Shneidman and Farberow (1957), suggest that genuine suicide notes reflect more positive feelings such as the expressions of love and affection (e.g., Ioannou & Debowska, 2014) are longer, and contain more instructions to survivors compared to simulated suicide notes (e.g., Black, 1993;Osgood & Walker, 1959).…”

“…In spite of the amount of research that has been undertaken to distinguish genuine and simulated suicide notes, there is still no reliable linguistic evidence that can be used to help identify the two types of suicide notes (Bennell et al, 2011;Shapero, 2011). The reason for that is, according to Shapero, that genuine and simulated suicide notes share some of the universal linguistic characteristics which have been established in suicide notes research.…”