Suicide and Self-Damaging Behavior

Suicide and Self-Damaging Behavior: A Sociobiological Perspective reviews the status of suicide and other exceptions to the prevailing regularities of behavior.
This book discusses the apparent anomaly of self-destructive behavior; current incidence of suicide and self-injury; self-destructiveness in other species; and biological fitness and social ecology of suicide. The pro-suicidal gene expression and natural selection; death concept; breakdown of other life-preserving factors with coping failure; and selection processes and altruism are also elaborated. This text likewise covers the chronic self-abuse, risk taking, and self-injurious or self-mutilative behavior.
This publication is a good source for anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, and social scientists concerned with self-destructive behavior.

Contenu

Preface

1. The Apparent Anomaly of Self-Destructive Behavior
   Assumptions about the Nature of Adaptive Behavior
   Assumptions about Innate Determination versus Learning, and the Influence of Natural Selection
   The Problem of Self-Destructiveness
   A Précis of the Arguments
2. The Current Incidence of Suicide and Self-Injury
   Suicide
   Parasuicide or Attempted Suicide
   Chronic Suicide and Risk Taking
   Self-Injurious or Self-Mutilative Behavior
   Conclusions
3. Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective
   The History of Suicide
   Suicide in Primitive Cultures
   Modern Ethnic, Racial, and Cultural Differences
   Conclusions
4. Self-Destructiveness in Other Species
   "Suicide" among Social Insects
   Migration, Emigration, and Population Dispersion
   Kin Selection and Parental Investment
   Self-Injury in Captivity and Experimental Conditions
   A Laboratory "Suicide Paradigm"
   The "Suicide-Death" Phenomenon
   Other Instances
   Conclusions
5. Biological Fitness and the Social Ecology of Suicide
   Proximate Motivation of Suicide
   Suicide in Childhood
   Suicide in Adolescence and Early Adulthood
   Age and Reproductive Status in Adult Suicide
   Other Trends in Adult Suicide
   Summary and Interpretation
6. Cultural Evolution and Suicide
   Technology and the Origin of Suicide
   Transitions in Methods and Technology
   Cognition and Suicide
   The Death Concept
   Imitation and Vicarious Learning
   Summary and Conclusions
7. Stress, Pathology, and Suicide
   Maladaptive States and Inheritance
   Environmental Stressors, Gene Expression, and Maladaptiveness
   Suicide and Psychopathology
   Rate of Adaptation to Harsh and Novel Environmental Contingencies
   Pathogenic Conditions, Culture, and the Social Ecology of Suicide
8. Coping Failure, Senescence, Gene Expression, and Suicide
   Prosuicidal Gene Expression and Natural Selection
   The Medawar-Williams Hypothesis, Senescence, and Death
   Breakdown of Other Life-Preserving Factors with Coping Failure
   Other Facets of Death and Senescence
   Genetics and Suicide
   Other Indirect Evidence of Genetic Involvement
   Reconciling Gene-Expression and Cultural-Learning Involvement in Suicide
9. Altruism and Suicide
   Selection Processes and Altruism
   Gene Sharing among Individuals
   Relative Strengths of Different Orders of Selection
   Kin Selection and Human Suicide
   Group Benefit and Human Suicide
   Aging, Reproductive Status, and Altruism
   Modern Conditions and Exceptional or Aberrant Cases
   Conclusions
10. Suicide, Physiology, and Behavioral Predispositions
    The Euphoria-Dysphoria Dimension
    Brain Reinforcement or Reward Mechanisms
    Stress, Hormones, and Neurochemistry
    Monoamines and Suicide
    Physiological Pain Mechanisms and Suicide
    Conclusions
11. Ethics and Suicide
    Ethics as Modulators of Suicide Frequency
    Ethics of Suicide
12. Limitations and Qualifications
    Suicide and Genetics
    Exceptional Cases
    Life Out of Context
    Limits on the Predictive Nature of the Hypotheses
    The Frequency of Suicide
    Biases in Statistics on Suicide
    Is Suicide a Unitary Phenomenon?
    The Species Generality of the Phenomenon
    Cognition, Learning, and Culture Revisited
13. Suicide: A Synthesis
    The State of Modern Suicidology
    Imperfections in Biological Adaptation
    Coping Strategies and Life Events
    Coping Failure and Suicide
    Mediation of Motivational Changes Accompanying Coping Failure
14. Parasuicide and Suicide
    Definitions of Parasuicide and Biases in Data
    Social Ecology of Parasuicide
    Followup Studies of Parasuicides
    Lethality of the Suicide Attempt
    Conclusions
15. Chronic Self-Abuse, Risk Taking, and Other Self-Damaging Behavior
    Chronic Self-Abuse
    Risk Taking
    Other Self-Damaging Behavioral Patterns
    Summary and Conclusions
16. Self-Injurious or Self-Mutilative Behavior
    The Role of Learning
    Physiological Malformation and Damage
    Abnormalities in Environment
    Learning Revisited
    Relationship to Adaptation
17. Toward an Expansion of Research Paradigms
    Self-Damaging Behavior: A Supersynthesis
    Critical Issues for Research
    Final Statement
    References
    Author Index
    Subject Index