Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion · chapter 4 · id influence-c4-09-suicide-rates-increase-after-p
“Suicide rates increase after publicized suicides with specificity -- single-victim suicides increase after solo suicide stories, while murder-suicides increase after murder-suicide stories, suggesting imitation rather than mere awareness.”
needs contextconfidence: medium⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending
Receipts
Phillips (1974, 1979), Suicide, Motor Vehicle Fatalities, and the Mass Media, American Sociological ReviewDOI registry: valid
After front-page suicide stories, single-vehicle fatalities increased, and the pattern matched -- single deaths after solo suicides, multi-fatality crashes after murder-suicide stories.
Niederkrotenthaler et al. (2021), Suicide Contagion, PMC Systematic Reviewsource alive
Evidence suggests that media suicide reporting can lead to imitative suicides, with characteristics of the reported suicide (method, demographics) influencing the pattern of subsequent suicides.
This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us — corrections are loud here.