Explaining the Rise in Youth Suicide

The ex-factor: Characteristics of online and offline post-relationship contact and tracking among Canadian emerging adults

“…Breakups clearly require considerable work by the partners involved to resolve their feelings and reconcile themselves to the end of the relationship. The adjustment process is known to be a difficult one, often extremely distressing, and as such draws considerably on individuals' coping and mental health resources (Chung et al, 2002;Cutler et al, 2001). Our findings reinforce this body of work by making clear how difficult it can be to adjust quickly to life without one's ex.…”

“…Breakups are known to be a leading cause of psychological trauma (Chung et al, 2002;Sprecher, 1994). They are the strongest predictor of first onset of Major Depressive Disorder (Monroe, Rohde, Seeley, & Lewinsohn, 1999), and are a leading cause of suicide among young people (Cutler, Glaeser, Norberg, 2001;US. National Violent Data Reporting System, 2013).…”

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The breakup of an intimate relationship is a highly distressing event among emerging adults (Cutler, Glaeser, Norberg, 2001) and can often be accompanied by difficulty adjusting to the loss and ''letting go'' (Mearns, 1991). Research on stalking and cyberstalking behaviours address criminal activities that incite fear in a target (e.g., Spitzberg & Cupach, 2007).

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Suicidal Disclosures among Friends

“…For example, Schaefer and colleagues found that depressed egos are more likely to be friends with depressed alters, though they determined this is not motivated by a preference for depressed friends, but instead by the marginalized location of depressed egos in broader adolescent friendship networks. Additionally, some research supports the idea that egos who are already at risk of suicidality prior to exposure to an alter’s suicide attempt are the most susceptible to suicide contagion (Baller and Richardson 2009); however, research that controls for egos’ histories of suicidality still finds a significant increase in risk of suicidality after exposure to an alter’s suicide attempt (Abrutyn and Mueller 2014a; Cutler, Glaeser, and Norberg 2001; Liu 2006; Mueller, Abrutyn, and Stockton 2014; Niederkrotenthaler et al 2012; Thompson and Light 2011). …”

An Evolutionary Theory of Suicide

“…They find that in the US, suicide rates are generally lower amongst higher-income groups and that the suicide behaviour of older people is more sensitive to changes in permanent income than that of younger ones. Such a utility-based approach to suicide has since been adopted and further developed, notably 5 by [10], who incorporate into their analysis the option value from delaying the act of suicide, and [11], who study the implications of this for the risk-taking behaviour of individuals over their lifecycle. Our model falls outside this utility-based approach, as it investigates whether suicide as the result of genetic hazard and independent from socio-economic factors is evolutionarily sustainable.…”