Lilienfeld, Scott O wrote: > What about Chris Green's point that the barriers may indeed decrease > suicides at the bridges themselves and perhaps even nearby bridges, but that > people who were going to jump probably end up killing themselves through > other means.... If the view that 'they'll just go elsewhere to die by > suicide' has any merit whatsoever, one would expect at least half of those > restrained to do so. But the actual figure is nowhere close to that. > Approximately 95 percent of those who were restrained either were still alive > at the time of the study or had died of natural causes" (p. 151).
But, again, this is a dataset specially selected to confirm the hypothesis. These people were near to jumping (but, note, we don't know if they would have actually become jumpers. There are people who contemplated jumping at the site, but then don't go through with it. We have no idea how many of these people "restrained by police" would have actually jumped). Once barriers are erected, and the fact is widely publicized, then people who might have jumped before aren't ever going to be included in the number of (attempted) jumping suicides. There is simply no way to know how many of the non-jumping suicides after barriers are erected would have become jumping suicides if the means had been still easily available (much less, how many people who never actually attempted suicide by any means would have committed suicide by jumping if the barriers were not in place). (Looking at overall suicide rates before and after might be a start, but the numbers of jumpers are so small to begin, and confounding variable from year to year so difficult to control, with that it is nearly impossible to show a significant change.) What we have (IMHO) here are a bunch of people (some of them otherwise skilled professional researchers) who have become convinced /a priori/ that barriers "work," and then go looking for confirmation of the "fact." As we here all know, confirmation bias is a terrible way to ascertain truth. Instead, what we seem to have is a Great Public Show of Concern -- we build something enormous and expensive that visibly represents our concern, we make a show of sacrificing a (usually) well-beloved, highly visible feature of the city -- even though doing so doesn't effectively redress the phenomenon of our concern. It is, in a phrase, superstitious behavior, not far removed (I'm afraid) from sacrificing animals or doing rain dances. > The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and > his play, > his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his > recreation, > his love and his intellectual passions. He hardly knows which is which. > He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, > leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. > To him - he is always doing both. > > - Zen Buddhist text > (slightly modified) > > Indeed! Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=3674 or send a blank email to leave-3674-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
