| Abstract: | Reviews the book, Suicide and Self-Damaging Behavior: A Sociobiological Perspective by Denys deCatanzaro (1981). Ultimately, it seems to me, this book does not persuasively present and support a useful, new approach to suicide. The author seeks to understand how self-destructive behaviour has existed in more or less constant frequency throughout human history, given evolutionary pressures toward species survival. His basic argument, elaborated extensively throughout the book, is that "those committing suicide are generally those with relative difficulties in reproductive and socially productive activities" and thus do not contribute as much to the "inclusive fitness" of the population. Even given the accuracy of his generalizations, the author must account for the seemingly maladaptive exceptions to the rule--that is, self-destructive behaviour among those who can still contribute positively to the population gene pool. In so doing, he turns to so many exceptions as to make the argument almost meaningless. The book concludes with suggestions for further research. Some of these suggestions (e.g., the role of ecologically novel environments on suicide) are promising. Others sound naive ("We need data allowing a partitioning of learned and nonlearned aspects of suicidal behavior"). It is not clear how the suggested research studies would demonstrate the validity of the sociobiological model, which seems incapable of empirical disproof. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
