The Influence of Suggestion on Suicide: Substantive and Theoretical Implications of the Werther Effect

TLDR

The study examines whether the post‑publication rise in suicides is due to suggestion, evaluating alternative explanations and the broader implications of this effect. The authors attribute the suicide spikes to suggestion effects triggered by media coverage, a national‑level influence not previously documented. Suicide rates rose immediately after newspaper coverage of suicide stories between 1947–1968, with larger increases linked to greater publicity and confined to the regions where the stories were reported.

Abstract

This paper shows that suicides increase immediately after a suicide story has been publicized in the newspapers in Britain and in the United States, 1947-1968. The more publicity devoted to a suicide story, the larger the rise in suicides thereafter. The rise in suicides after a story is restricted mainly to the area in which the story was publicized. Alternative explanations of these findings are examined; the evidence indicates that the rise in suicides is due to the influence of suggestion on suicide, an influence not previously demonstrated on the national level of suicides. The substantive, theoretical, and methodological implications of these findings are examined.