Jonas K
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany.
Br J Soc Psychol. 1992 Dec;31 ( Pt 4):295-306. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1992.tb00974.x.
The present study investigates whether news about suicides of prominent persons evokes an imitative effect. To this end, daily overall suicide frequencies of a German federal state, Baden-Württemberg, were examined for the years 1968 to 1980 and were related to prominent suicides that were publicized in major newspapers. Data were analysed quasi-experimentally and by means of a time series regression analysis. These methods yielded significant or marginally significant increases, respectively, for the week following the news. Alternative social psychological explanations were examined, and possible statistical artifacts were taken into account. The results are on the whole consistent with the assumption of an imitative effect.
本研究调查了名人自杀的新闻是否会引发模仿效应。为此，对德国巴登-符腾堡州1968年至1980年的每日自杀总频率进行了检查，并将其与在各大报纸上公布的名人自杀事件相关联。采用准实验方法并通过时间序列回归分析对数据进行了分析。这些方法分别在新闻发布后的一周内产生了显著或边缘显著的增长。研究还考察了其他社会心理学解释，并考虑了可能的统计假象。总体而言，结果与模仿效应的假设一致。
