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Abstract
Joiner and colleagues' Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (IPTS), a prominent "desire-capability" model of suicide-based on the common-sense idea that people take their own lives because they want to, and can-is critiqued from a biological perspective. Tinbergen's ethological "four questions" guide the analysis: evolution, survival value, ontogeny, and proximate causation, each addressing a different aspect of biological understanding. Problems for IPTS emerge with all four. As a parsimonious solution, the desire-capability hypothesis is reconceived as an ultimate, instead of proximate, mode of explanation. By this light, desire and capability for suicide combined in our species' ancestral past, thus making suicide a recurrent survival threat, and driving the evolution of special-purpose defensive adaptations. This stance tallies with the pain-brain theory of the evolution of suicide, and with Joiner and colleagues' own investigation into organismic anti-suicide defenses, which appears to conflict conceptually with IPTS. These defenses' evolved algorithm may make suicide an intrinsically aleatory phenomenon, opaque to usefully accurate prediction. Positive implications for prevention and research are proposed.
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Duffy ME, Buchman-Schmitt JM, McNulty JK, Joiner TE. Eyes Fixed on Heaven's Gate: An Empirical Examination of Blink Rate and Suicide. Arch Suicide Res 2022:1-9. [PMID: 35670415 DOI: 10.1080/13811118.2022.2083536] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Abstract
Anecdotal and theoretical work suggests blink rate as an indicator of imminent suicide risk. We sought to empirically examine whether suicide decedents displayed a reduced blink rate in goodbye videos filmed before death, compared to several control groups. Independent raters coded blink rates from videos of 34 suicide decedents and four comparison groups: "mundane" product review, non-suicidal arousal, non-suicidal depression, and non-imminent risk of suicidal ideation. Mean blink rate was lower in the suicide decedent group relative to all comparison groups (ps < .001), except the depressed (p = .976) and suicidal ideation (p = .393) groups. Findings indicate blink rate may be reduced among individuals at imminent risk for suicide, exhibiting clinically-significant depressive symptoms, or experiencing suicidal ideation.
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Chatterjee D, Rai R. Choosing Death Over Survival: A Need to Identify Evolutionary Mechanisms Underlying Human Suicide. Front Psychol 2021; 12:689022. [PMID: 34803791 PMCID: PMC8595259 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Accepted: 10/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The act of killing self contradicts the central purpose of human evolution, that is, survival and propagation of one’s genetic material. Yet, it continues to be one of the leading causes of human death. A handful of theories in the realm of evolutionary psychology have attempted to explain human suicide. The current article analyses the major components of certain prominent viewpoints, namely, Inclusive fitness, Bargaining model, Pain-Brain model, Psychological aposematism, and few other perspectives. The article argues that relatively more weightage has been given to understanding ultimate (the “why”) rather than proximate (the “how”) functionality of suicidal acts. Evolutionary theorists have consistently pointed out that to comprehensively understand a trait or behavior, one needs to delineate not only how it supports survival but also the evolution of the mechanisms underlying the trait or behavior. Existing theories on suicide have primarily focused on its fitness benefits on surviving kin instead of providing evolutionary explanations of the more complex mechanisms leading up to such self-destructive motivations. Thus, the current paper attempts to highlight this gap in theorizing while suggesting probable proximate explanations of suicide which stresses the need to diffuse attention paid to fitness consequences of the act alone. We speculate that such explorations are needed in order to build a robust and comprehensive evolutionary theory of human suicide.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diya Chatterjee
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
| | - Rishabh Rai
- Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
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Sastre-Buades A, Alacreu-Crespo A, Courtet P, Baca-Garcia E, Barrigon ML. Decision-making in suicidal behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021; 131:642-662. [PMID: 34619171 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2021] [Revised: 09/29/2021] [Accepted: 10/01/2021] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Impaired decision-making (DM) is well-known in suicidal behavior (SB). We aimed to review the evidence on DM and its mediating factors in SB and perform a meta-analysis on DM assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). We conducted a search on databases of papers published on DM and SB up to 2020: 46 studies were included in the systematic review, and 18 in the meta-analysis. For meta-analysis, we compared DM performance between suicide attempters (SAs) and patients (PCs) or healthy controls (HCs). The systematic review showed that SAs have greater difficulties in all DM domains. The meta-analysis found worse IGT performance among SAs in comparison with PCs and HCs. A meta-regression did not find differences for age, gender, psychiatric disorder, and clinical status. Our findings indicate that SAs exhibited deficits in DM under conditions of risk though not ambiguity. Worse DM was independent of age, gender, psychiatric disorder, and suggested that DM impairment could be considered a cognitive trait of suicidal vulnerability, a risk factor and an attribute of SAs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aina Sastre-Buades
- Department of Psychiatry, Fundación Jimenez Diaz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain; Department of Neurology, Son Llatzer University Hospital, Palma, Spain.
| | - Adrián Alacreu-Crespo
- Department of Emergency Psychiatry and Acute Care, CHU Montpellier, France; IGF, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INSERM, Montpellier, France; Department of Psychology and Sociology, Area of Personality, Assessment and Psychological Treatment, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain.
| | - Philippe Courtet
- Department of Emergency Psychiatry and Acute Care, CHU Montpellier, France; IGF, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, INSERM, Montpellier, France.
| | - Enrique Baca-Garcia
- Department of Psychiatry, Fundación Jimenez Diaz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain; Fundación Jimenez Diaz Health Research Institute, Madrid, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, Rey Juan Carlos University Hospital, Móstoles, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, General Hospital of Villalba, Madrid, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, Infanta Elena University Hospital, Valdemoro, Madrid, Spain; Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile.
| | - Maria Luisa Barrigon
- Department of Psychiatry, Fundación Jimenez Diaz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain; Fundación Jimenez Diaz Health Research Institute, Madrid, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain; Department of Psychiatry, Virgen del Rocío University Hospital, Sevilla, Spain.
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Beyond the Search for Suigiston: How Evolution Offers Oxygen for Suicidology. EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7_3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/25/2022] Open
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