Status Integration and Suicide

The data reported here lend strong support to the hypothesis that the homicide rate of a societal group is directly proportional to the degree of status integration of that societal group.

Abstract

Gibbs and Martin (1964) predicted and found that the suicide rate of a population varies inversely with the amount of status integration, the degree to which people in a society have roles that do not conflict (as measured by the frequency of occupation of particular role combinations). The present paper investigated the relationship between the homicide rate and measures of status integration. Suicide and homicide have often been conceptualized as behaviors following opposite laws (e.g., Henry & Short, 1954) and so a direct relationship between the homicide rate and the degree of status integration of a population might be predicted. There are two sources of available data. The Spearman rhos between measures of status integration (weighted and unweighted) for states of the USA (Gibbs & Martin, 1964) and the homicide rates of these states in 1950 (Langberg, 1967) were 0.33 and 0.34 respectively (one-tailed p < 0.05 ). The Spearman rho between measures of status integration for the 9 provinces of Ceylon (Gibbs & Martin, 1959) and their homicide rate (Straus & Straus, 1953) was 0.11; the Spearman rho between these variables over the 5 ethnic groups of Ceylon was 0.60. The data reported here lend strong support to the hypothesis that the homicide rate of a societal group is directly proportional to the degree of status integration of that societal group. Thus, again ic is found that suicide and homicide vary in opposite ways with important variables (e.g., with the economy as shown by Henry and Short).